Atmospheric Tests at the Nevada Test Site; Nevada Test Site History DOE/NV - -716 - Rev 1
Las Vegas, NV: National Nuclear Security Administration, Nevada Site Office, Office of Public Affairs, 2005. Presumed First printing for Rev 1. Single sheet, printed on both sides. Format is approximately 8.5 inches by 11 inches. Illustrations and text on both sides. The Nevada Test Site was the primary testing location of American nuclear devices from 1951 to 1992; 928 announced nuclear tests occurred there. Of those, 828 were underground. (Sixty-two of the underground tests included multiple, simultaneous nuclear detonations, adding 93 detonations and bringing the total number of NTS nuclear detonations to 1,021, of which 921 were underground.) The site is covered with subsidence craters from the testing. The NTS was the United States' primary location for tests smaller than 1 Mt (4.2 PJ). 126 tests were conducted elsewhere, including most larger tests. Many of these occurred at the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands. The last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site was "Little Feller I" of Operation Sunbeam, on July 17, 1962. One hundred atmospheric nuclear tests were detonated at the Nevada Test Site (originally the Nevada Proving Grounds) between 1951 and 1963. The first Nevada series, code-named Ranger, was conducted during January and February 1951, immediately after President Harry S. Truman had approved the establishment of a continental test site in Nevada. During the early years, testing schedules remained on a campaign basis, alternating between the Nevada Test Site (NTS) and the Pacific Proving Ground.
In the early days of testing, there was an urgent need to understand the science and engineering of these powerful new weapons, their use on the battlefield, and their effects. Tests were conducted for a variety of reasons—to test and prove new designs, to assess the effects of nuclear weapons, to develop warheads for specific delivery systems. Meteorologists monitored weather patterns, pilots flew airplanes through the radioactive clouds to sample radiation levels, and scientists “chased” fallout clouds across the Nevada desert to better understand offsite impacts. Ranger, the first test series at the NTS, was conducted in early 1951 with nuclear devices designed by Los Alamos scientists and airdropped from bombers out of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The next NTS series, Buster-Jangle, was a joint Los Alamos-Department of Defense (DoD) operation conducted during October-November 1951. The series tested both new weapons configurations and weapons effects. The DoD tests were designed to better understand the cratering capabilities of nuclear weapons for the battlefield. The test code-named Sugar was the only test ever detonated at the surface, on the ground in Nevada—as opposed to an airdrop, tower, or balloon shot. It created a crater twenty-one feet deep and ninety feet wide. Buster-Jangle also involved the first troops from the U.S. Army’s Atomic Maneuver Battalion, stationed at Camp Desert Rock outside the test site town of Mercury. Between 1951 and 1955 thousands of military personnel from all service branches served at Desert Rock, participating in maneuvers at the test site, witnessing atomic blasts from trenches, marching toward ground zero after detonations and collecting radiation effects information. Condition: Very good.
Keywords: Nevada Test Site, Nuclear Weapons Test, Atmospheric Testing, Operation Ranger, Operation Upshot-Knothole, Civil Defense, Operation Teapot, Operation Plumbbob, Operation Hardtack II, Little Feller I, Operation Crossroads, Operation Greenhouse, Operati
[Book #81038]
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