The Atomic Show #068 – Ray Haroldsen, Atomic Tinkerer who has tested the limits
Ray Haroldsen is an atomic pioneer who began working at the National Reactor Testing Station in January 1952. He talks today about his experiences with EBR 1 and the BORAX series of reactor experiments.
A good friend of mine contacted me recently and told me that I needed to interview Ray Haroldsen for the Atomic Show. He told me that Ray had a lot of interesting stories to tell about his experiences with many of the early test reactors developed at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.
Ray is a good storyteller with a real depth of experience and a fantastic memory of long ago events. I guess that certain important days remain so clearly in memory that the stories can be told even after 55 years. Though these events happened even before I was born, they are still important parts of atomic history and influenced the development of major technical breakthroughs.
For this episode of the Atomic Show, Ray and I talked about his experiences with the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 (EBR I) and his experiences with the BORAX (Boiling Reactor Experiment) series. I think you will find his stories worth a good listen and maybe even a repeat.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:26 — 20.1MB)
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Excellent job on the audio! This was a terrific episode both quantitatively and qualitatively. Please have Ray back again soon and keep up the wonderful sound work.
Great stories. Thanks to Ray for his pioneering efforts to harness the stong force, and to Rod for helping to communicating it.
15R in one exposure would make front page headlines today, guaranteeing fines, investigations, and additional regulations. For Ray and his teammates, it was a no-never-mind, just a part of doing what it took to get an important job done.
Of course his generation showed themselves to be better at self-sacrifice, discipline, and courage than the radiophobia, nimbyism, and fearmongering that is rampant today.
My grand father was an electrical engineer on that project.
he tells some pretty good stories as well.
As far hs he knows he is the only living member of that team.
My dad is Keith Tibbitts and we are watching this documentary today, March11, 2023. My dad is still alive and we are wondering if Ray is still alive? Very i interesting! Very smart people! Thanks for posting.
Keith
What documentary are you watching?
I’m not positive, but I am pretty sure Ray Haroldsen is still alive. He was quoted in an Idaho Statesman article in 2019.
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article234047822.html
His obituary hasn’t been published.