Impactful Times: Memories of 60 Years of Shock Wave Research at Sandia National Laboratories

Sandia National Laboratories' origin~began during World War II. In July 1945 our forerunner, Sandia Base,~was established to develop, test, and assemble non-nuclear parts of weapons. Shock~wave research became essential in the 1950s with the advent of supersonic and exoatmospheric missiles. A major concern was effects of radiation-produced shocks on materials. As a result, we developed a wide range of experimental, diagnostic, modeling, and computational capabilities. These have addressed complex issues related to both weapons and basic science. Notable applications have included analysis of the cause of the turret explosion aboard the USS Iowa, predicting the response to the Shoemaker-Levy comet impact on Jupiter, and evidence for an abrupt transition of dense liquid hydrogen from an insulator to a metal~at high pressures.~Six decades later, our research encompasses all aspects of material science from~high energy density physics to low density plasma surface interactions.