Becoming a Weapons Scientist

In Becoming a Weapons Scientist, Hugh Gusterson examines the life and work of Sylvia, a female nuclear weapons designer, in his attempt towards understanding the culture of nuclear weapons scientists, specifically “whether nuclear weapons protect their bearers from danger or are themselves the danger from which we need to be protected” (Gusterson 5). The author’s interest in nuclear weaponry and the scientists whose job it was to make them arose from Gusterson’s involvement in the anti-nuclear movement as an activist in the mid-eighties. Sylvia, a self-proclaimed feminist whose aunt was deeply affected by the Hiroshima explosion seemed to be the last person one would expect to be working in nuclear weapons laboratory. While the subject of nuclear weapons has been a polarizing issue along conservative-liberal lines in the public sphere; the author found that the laboratory was politically diverse. Contrary to his expectations, the scientists were more interested in the technical safety of nuclear weapons rather than asserting their political agenda. During his research, he found that “the process of becoming a nuclear weapons scientist is one of becoming increasingly certain that nuclear weapons are reasonably safe” (14). Sylvia feared “not a deliberate nuclear war but rather the possibility of an accidental explosion of a nuclear weapon” (15). I found it interesting how both of their fears regarding the safety of nuclear weapons shaped profoundly different understandings of how individuals should approach the problems raised by nuclear weaponry, and I value the insight it gave into the assumptions I hold regarding the issue.