Impactful Times---Memories of 60 years of Shock Wave Research at Sandia National Laboratories.

The origin of Sandia National Laboratories began in World War II and the Manhattan Project. The engineering workforce at that time conducted ordnance design, testing, and assembly of nuclear weapons. In the early 1950s the need to understand material properties prompted a research program modeled after AT&T Bell Laboratories on the response of materials to shock compression. That decision was instrumental in developing a wide range of experimental, diagnostic, material modeling, and computational capabilities.