On January 3, 1961, at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho, a routine maintenance procedure turned into the deadliest nuclear accident in U.S. history. Three young military technicians - John Byrnes (22), Richard Legg (26), and Richard McKinley (27) were reassembling the SL-1 experimental reactor after a holiday shutdown. The horror began when Byrnes attempted to manually lift the central control rod to reconnect it to its drive mechanism. The rod, which had a history of