Manhattan Project by Goodyear Tire to encase the reactor. On 2 December 1942, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in an experimental reactor known as Chicago Pile-1. The point at which a reaction becomes self-sustaining became known as "going critical". Compton reported the success to Conant in Washington, D.C., by a coded phone call, saying, "The Italian navigator [Fermi] has just landed in the new world." In January 1943, Grafton's successor, Major Arthur V. Peterson, ordered Chicago Pile-1 dismantled and reassembled at Red Gate Woods, as he regarded the operation of a reactor as
RA-1 Enrico Fermi RA-1 Enrico Fermi RA-1 Enrico Fermi is a research reactor in Argentina and the first nuclear reactor to be built in that country. Construction started April 1957, with first criticality 17 January 1958. It produced the first medical and industrial radioisotopes made in Argentina, and was used to train staff for the first two nuclear power stations there. It is a pool type, with enriched uranium oxide fuel (20% U-235), light water coolant and moderator, and a graphite reflector. It produces 40 kilowatts of thermal energy at full authorised power. It has been modernised on several occasions, and is currently