I know several physicists at los alamos and i can only conclude that the "manufacturing" parts of the lab have a very different safety culture than the "science

I know several physicists at los alamos and i can only conclude that the "manufacturing" parts of the lab have a very different safety culture than the "science" parts of the lab. Researchers at los alamos love coming to university accelerators to do work because they can actually get things done (Even things as simple as using a ladder involve beurocracy at national labs). The same kinds of criticality experiments that famously killed people in the past are essentially unrecognizable as far as interlocks and procedures are concerned. From reading the article you would think it's the wild west out there, but it actually has one of the most rigidly enforced safety cultures i know of among scientists. Being categorically prohibited from using machine tools as a scientist, for instance, is one of the things keeping me away from working there (if you need something made it goes into queue and machinists get to it on their own time). It wouldn't be surprising if the people actually manufacturing pits etc are effectively employees of a different organization.