“Naron,” said the messenger. “Great One!”
“Well, well, what is it? Less ceremony.”
“Another group of organisms has attained maturity.”
“Excellent. Excellent. They are coming up quickly now. Scarcely a year passes without a new one. And who are these?”
The messenger gave the code number of the galaxy and the coordinates of the world within it.

“Ah, yes,” said Naron. “I know the world.” And in flowing script he noted it in the first book and transferred its name into the second, using, as was customary, the name by which the planet was known to the largest fraction of its populace. He wrote: Earth.
He said, “These new creatures have set a record. No other group has passed from intelligence to maturity so quickly. No mistake, I hope.”
“None, sir,” said the messenger. “They have attained to thermonuclear power, have they?”
“Yes. sir.”
“Well, that’s the criterion.” Naron chuckled. “And soon their ships will probe out and contact the Federation.”
“Actually, Great One,” said the messenger, reluctantly, “the Observers tell us they have not yet penetrated space.”

Naron was astonished. “Not at all? Not even a space station?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“But if they have thermonuclear power, where then do they conduct their tests and detonations?”
“On their own planet, sir.”

Naron rose to his full twenty feet of height and thundered, “On their own planet?”
“Yes, sir.”
Slowly Naron drew out his stylus and passed a line through the latest addition in the smaller book. It was an unprecedented act, but, then, Naron was very wise and could see the inevitable as well as anyone in the galaxy.

“Silly asses,” he muttered.

First published in: Future Science Fiction, February 1958, p. 114
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The project Atom is based on archival photographs from nuclear tests and revolves around how the ‘atomic age’ is a turning point¹ and to which extent human stupidity can destroy the world we live in. Is possible the survival of humanity and living beings with whom we share the planet as we know it under the current system?.

The phrase “atomic age” has been around since 1945 in reference to the world’s reframing by the newfound human control over nuclear forces. Nuclear weapons prompted both apocalyptic visions of humanity’s annihilation through mutually assured destruction and promises of abundance, progress, and modernity through the utilization of atomic energy.

On the one side, the atrocities of mass destruction in Japanese cities, on Pacific Atolls, and other “testing sites” across the globe forever stamped the self-image of the human as an engineer of death. On the other side, harnessing nuclear power and the emerging nuclear sector were hailed as instruments of national security, a hotbed of technological innovation, a wellspring for electric household energy, and a radically modern means of investigating the natural world and improving human bodies and diets. But soon the smiling side of this Janus face faded, and threat of radioactivity became the scare phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth-century. Radioactive contamination has changed the natural and the social environment to an extent that brings a whole new register into focus: the possibility that life on this planet could end as we know it².

Our current development, predating the planet, following the dictates of capitalism will certainly drive us to mass extinction³.

Production of steel requires iron, coal, and an immense amount of air which passes through the mix. Today, all the air on Earth contains traces of radioactive residues from the nuclear tests realized since 1945. The so produced metals contain contamination by radionuclides, interfering with the function of sensitive medical and technical equipment. Until recently⁴, scientists involved in the production of those devices sought metals uncontaminated by background radiation, referred to as low-background steel, low-background lead, and so on⁵.

For certain sensitive scientific instruments For many years, it wasn't possible to manufacture on Earth steel or other metals without radionuclides, it had to be taken from shipwrecks sunken before 1945, as the German naval fleet that Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttled in 1919 to keep the ships from the British⁶, as lead has been frequently taken from roman archeological sites⁷.