"And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore." - Isaiah 2:4

These words from the Christian Bible became the inspiration for the name of the program that would change the use of nuclear weapons from war to peace.

The Plowshare Program's goal was to find peaceful uses for atomic weaponry and energy. Scientists conducted one of the program's first experiments on December 10, 1963. Scientists at what is today the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory devised project Gnome.

Scientists chose a site southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, where they detonated an atomic bomb for generating electricity. Workers dug a tunnel 1216 feet into the ground so that the scientists could place the bomb in a layer of rock salt. The salt would trap the energy of the explosion, as heat, so that workers could pump water into the cavern creating steam that, when collected, would turn a turbine thus generating electricity.

However, the experiment was not very successful as the tunnel failed to seal properly after the blast and some of the energy escaped, as well as some radiation. The blast created a cavern one hundred seventy feet wide by ninety feet high.

Although the underground site is not open for viewing, above the cavern is a concrete monument with a plaque describing one of the first experiments in the peaceful use of nuclear weapons.