I thought my 300th review should go to a special place.
http://www.yelp.com/user_local_photos?select=P8mhHhcXHYDgJZDBsFPy7A&userid=EMMzx-gGDKsU4enmbae6dw
This is one eye opening museum. One that will radioactively enlighten your day.
This is a branch of the Smithsonian Institution and like all the others this place is very thorough in letting you know the facts from multiple perspectives. I did the self tour so I could take my time and soak in as much on this place as I could. I even met a Yelp friend Atom. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-atomic-testing-museum-las-vegas?select=sJt8qJbkCXpeFB_9vFhdHg#sJt8qJbkCXpeFB_9vFhdHg
The Museum kind of starts in reverse as the first display is one that shows the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan with a short premier of the A-bombs birth. http://www.yelp.com/user_local_photos?select=DxttT6mA5FbF1agv35diAQ&userid=EMMzx-gGDKsU4enmbae6dw
You quickly move about the various displays that include to a milti-timeline table of the nuclear era that includes popular things like what the best TV show was, what was happening in Russia http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-atomic-testing-museum-las-vegas?select=oVbywp4289aavJ4pThd8Hg#FhcKP7e0Ueul1pLzHKiLGA and what kind of nuclear testing was being done at that moment in time. A very interesting history lesson.
There is a letter penned to the US government from Albert Einstein from 1939 (well before WWII) that discussed the future of nuclear science, power, medicine and weapons and the need for the government to secure however possible the raw materials (uranium) from places both local and abroad.
There are many cool displays from a working Geiger counter that you can use to sample display radioactive things that you'd never imagine are radioactive. I stuck my cell phone and guess what? Light radiation is emitted from a dumb phone. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-atomic-testing-museum-las-vegas?select=oVbywp4289aavJ4pThd8Hg#p23oO9CppodE_yTr8KQdzw
There are interactive displays and one of my favorites was the first theater where you got to feel a blast as if you were there. http://www.yelp.com/user_local_photos?select=whzFsAV7dW1-ivMEOzJovQ&userid=EMMzx-gGDKsU4enmbae6dw This museum is rich with displays and physical / video / audio accounts of what it's like to be on the foreground of this nuclear testing facility just outside of Las Vegas.
This is a really a historical tour of our nations past that you must have once. 5***** Stars
Additionally there is a display that I did not go to that details area 51 and all the mystery that surrounds it, heard it sucked so I didn't bother.
If you're a history buff and are a quasi-nerd like me you might just dig this place.