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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Do they have open days when you can see cherenkov light on ignition?

Do they permit non-nationals into the facility?

I have a sad story about an Iranian civil engineer who was super embarrassingly conducted away from the conference at a US university when she arrived because her nationality (not her residency: she lived in Australia) forbade her being within 25km of the campus and the conference organisers were meant to have known. All due to nuclear engineering facilities and ITAR restrictions.

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While it appears they do not, there are definitely some other TRIGA reactors that seem to have very permissive tour policies, e.g., Penn State's (https://www.rsec.psu.edu/tour-request-form.aspx)

It's definitely with a visit if you can, a TRIGA pulse (where they pneumatically eject a control rod and then the reactor temporarily increases very dramatically in power causing a lot of Cherenkov radiation) is very cool to see. Usually they turn the lights off, so you stand in semi-darkness waiting until you hear a loud "BANG!" and then the room is illuminated by the brilliant blue glow. Great fun and perfectly safe!

> Great fun and perfectly safe!

Sounds like a Homer Simpson quote...

The Simpsons were slander and libel.

Amazing! Thanks

I don't think they run public tours, but they do have tours for local schools and community organizations I believe. It's pretty easy to get a tour as a Reed student, and yes, you can see the Cherenkov radiation.

Source: I'm a Reed alum. One of my regrets is not getting a job working the reactor while I was there.

Edit: Re: Foreign nationals - I don't see why not? I don't recall them asking anyone, and honestly, ejecting someone because of their nationality would be something that Reedies would absolutely protest. The reactor is on campus, and foreign nationals are definitely welcome on campus.

It's a pretty small reactor that is mostly useful for chemistry and physics experiments, and is staffed mostly by undergrads - I don't think it's a huge national security concern.

Here's the tour request form: https://reactor.reed.edu/tour-request.php

The foreign nationals thing may be the ITAR regs from my story. Your average foreign person? not a big deal. Chinese, Syrian, Iranian, (North) Korean, Now Russian: very big deal. It is a very blunt instrument applied because they haven't got a better one.

Non-proliferation is a fine idea, but is there anything you could learn touring there that's not all over the internet and text books already? TRIGA was designed in 1956.

Probably don't want people around or identifying the next generation of American nuclear engineers either

They certainly used to have open days or field trips for schools/similar. I went on one. The Cherenkov was beautiful. They let at least one non US LPR in at that time.

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