John Coster-Mullen is called the ‘Atomic Trucker’ because of his extensive knowledge of the atomic bomb and the fact that he’s a truck driver. You see, Coster-Mullen’s high school teacher was one of the engineers of the first atomic bombs– the ones dropped on Japan– and Coster-Mullen served as a lab assistant for his teacher. Doing so, he learned a lot about the construction of the bombs.
Coster-Mullen is now one the world’s leading authorities on the atomic bomb and has written a book and, when he’s not driving, he attends seminars and speaks to audiences about the construction of the atomic bomb.
According to Coster-Mullen’s wikipedia page he has been interviewed by or appeared in/on “the 2007 documentary about the 2005 60th anniversary Tinian event entitled “Echoes from the Apocalypse.” I worked with PBS for their 2006 program “Dr. Teller’s Very Large Bomb.” The “Tech Effects” program “Hiroshima” runs on the History Channel and I am listed in the credits. I worked with filmmaker Jon Else on his 2007 PBS documentary “Wonders are Many” about the making of the opera “Doctor Atomic” where my book was utilized as an important reference during the production of the opera. In addition, drawings and equations from my book appeared in this opera when it was presented in San Francisco, Amsterdam, Chicago Lyric Opera, New York Met, and London. I appeared in the “Nagasaki” episode of the Weather Channel’s “How Weather Changed History” program and on 3/9/09, I gave a presentation about my research at the University of Chicago’s prestigious Enrico Fermi Institute. I appeared in the documentary “Atomic Trucker” shown on the Internet on Motherboard VBS TV. My Fat Man cross-section drawing was used in the 2009 documentary “Die Bombe” produced by Cinecentrum in Hamburg and subsequently shown on ZDF, German public TV. In 2009, I contributed material to the documentary “Countdown to Zero” and in 2010 contributed to the National Geographic Television Channel’s documentary “24 Hours After Hiroshima.” On 2/16/11, I delivered a lecture about my book and research at Fermilab near Chicago.”
Watch his story below.
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