Memo for Chairman Seaborg, Subject: Background Fact Sheet on the Nevada Test Site (NTS) (Fact Sheet Attached)

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BEST AVAILABLE COPY ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION l-El-DRAKDUM FOR CHAIRMH SEABORG THROUGH GENERAL MANAGER ---- SUBJECT: BACKGROUND FACT SHEET ON THE NEVADA TEST SITE (NTS) The attached background fact sheet- on the Nevada Test Site, ^ r which the Division of Military Application updated on - October 15, 1961, t6 meet several requests from members . of Congress for general information on this Site, is . forwarded for your information. _ The previous limitation on permitting only portions of the August 3, 1961 NTS fact sheet to be released at any one time ,has been rescinded for the attached October 15, 1961 edition. This document will be used primarily by the Office of Field Operations, Las Vegas, Nevada. Other interested staff and program divisions of the Head quarters have concurred in this publication. Director of l-iilitary Application

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BEST AVAILABLE COPY (Note to AEG and AEG Contractor Personnel; The following material ' has been compiled principally from previously issued information and is reproduced to provide language that can be used in providing BACKGROUND FACT SHEET ON NEVADA TEST SITE Department of Energy BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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BEST AVAILABLE COPY Between 1951 and 1958, Nevada Test Site was used .primarily for weapons development testing involving nuclear and chemical explosive detonations and, secondarily, for many associated military and civil effects programs. After 1958, there was- a progressively increasing utilization of the site for other nuclear and related programs, such as studies of nuclear propulsion. Such activities are continuing Activity at Nevada Test Site continued at a fairly high level after 1958. The major activities prior to renewal of weapons testing were ^ construction and operations related to nuclear rocket and nuclear ^ ramjet propulsion. There were no tests of nuclear weapons at NTS from October 31, 1958, to September 15, 1961. Weapons development In late June, 1961, total employment at NTS was about 2300, of which approximately 1320 were employees of the Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company, which is the AEG contractor for camp operations, maintenance, some types of construction and various other operations at the test site (and for support of Tonopah test programs). Others were employees of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, the Department of Defense and various contractors, including construction contractors. During the same period Department of Energy BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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overnight occupancy at Mercury Headquarters camp for the Test ■ Site approximated 900. Mercury can reasonably accommodate 1400 persons in dormitories and trailers, although in periods pf heavy activities in the past, as many as 2400 were provided sleeping As of October 15, total employment at NTS was about 3400 and overnight occupancy at Mercury (usipg some facilities at nearby Camp Desert Rock), at Area 400 and at Tunnel Area Quarters was GENERAL INFORMATION ON NEVADA TEST SITE . The total AEG investment in plant and equipment at NTS now approximates $60,000,000. This includes Mercury, the Control Point, the Jackass Flats testing areas, and present tunnels and shafts, but does not include towers, tunnels, shafts and other construction which has been expended during past nuclear detonations. Project Rover has an investment approximating $45,000,000 for test construction and equipment, in place, under construction,,or This program for development of nuclear propulsion systems for rockets is jointly sponsored by the AEC and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, with nuclear reactor system research BEST AVAILABLE COPY , Department of Energy

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BEST AVAILABLE COPY conducted by the Los Alamo's Scientific Laboratory. Ground testing of reactor systems is conducted in the 400 Area of the Test Site, located about 25 miles northwest of MerCuiry in' ■ Jackass Flats. There a complex of structures and communications systems has been constructed, complete with utilities, and three reactors in the Kiwi-A serifes have been subjected to, power runs. Construction in the 400 Area, including original construction of Test Cell A, of the Maintenance, Assembly and Disassembly Building, of the Control Point structures, and of roads, utilities, and a railroad, cost approximately $12,000,000 before a current modifi cation of expansion program began. A second test cell (Test Cell C) is under construction. Modification of Test Cell A, to permit use of liquid hydrogen as the propellant and coolant material in future reactor tests there, is substantially finished. The MAD Building has been enlarged through addition of a second Contracts have been let for initial phase construction of a third test facility. Test Cell D. Mahout Construction Company of Rialto, California, was awarded the principal contract on a low bid of $1,176,741 for construction of the test cell facility. Roads and water lines are being installed under other contracts. Test Cell D will have a second control complex, additional to the control BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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con^jlex that now is associated with Test Cells A and C. A Kiwi-B series of reactors is to undergo tests in the 400 Area This program for development of a ramjet nuclear propulsion system for missiles is jointly sponsored-.bjr the AEC and the Air Force, with the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory as the principal contractor for nuclear'reactor system research and development. The first developmental reactor in the program, designated Tory IIA-1 had an intermediate power run on May 14, 1961, under simulated flight conditions in the 401 Area of NTS, Further power test runs of Tory IIA-1 were held on September 28, October 5, and October 6, 1961, Any flight of a missile powered by a nuclear ramjet would be in the earth's atmosphere, and a considerable amount of the approximately $7,000,000 spent to date on construction in the 401 Area has been for facilities for creating simulated flight conditions during ground test operations. A massive compressed air system and a facility to heat the compressed air before its release permit blowing hot air against the reactor system at a test stand to simulate flight at , approximately MACH 3. Construction of additional air storage capacity will begin in December 1961 at a cost of approximately $8,000,000 to accommodate the testing of the next reactor, Tory II C. BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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Structures in the 401 Area consist of a control'building, a hot critical test building where experiments were conducted on the effect of heat or reactor materials, a hot disassembly building, a test stand and air supply facility, roads, utilities, and a railroad from the disassembly building to the test stand. Space Nuclear Propulsion Office plans call for location of the National Nuclear Rocket Development .Center in an area in the general Jackass Flats portion of the Test Site. More than $50,000,000 in construction is scheduled for the Center, where ground tests- will be conducted on nuclear reactors in the Rover program for developing a nuclear propulsion engine for rockets in the Nation* s space program. TUNNELS AND SHAFTS Beginning in 1957, a system of tunnels was constructed in Area 12 as sites for underground nuclear detonations. In this system the first full-scale contained underground nuclear detonation in the free world was fired in September 1957, and four others were fired in 1958. Some exploratory work is still underway to determine the close-in effects of the 1958 underground detonations. The tunnel complex currently includes two major tunnel systems which are now being used for full-scale underground nuclear BEST AVAILABLE COPY Department of Energy BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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detonations, a third major tunnel complex now under construction and three smaller systems originally designed for safety experiments which have been modified for low yield detonations. One of the existing'major tunnel systems has about 5,100 feet of tunnel and drifts, and the other about 15,400 feet. The number of available locations will depend on the size of any detonations Cost of all the existing tunnel systems exceeds $6,500,000. At the peak of activity, prior to June 30, 1960, 255 men were employed digging tunnels. Employment about August 1, 1961, was 70 men. Current employment is at 300. By mid-1961, four vertical shafts had been drilled at NTS for underground nuclear detonations. These shafts are similar to those used by IASI, for safety experiments prior to October 31, 1958, and are in the alluvial fill that makes up most of the less hilly Costs of shafts existing at NTS in early August was approximately Project Plowshare, a program conducted by the Lawrence Radiation ■ Laboratory to determine the feasibility of peaceful applications BEST AVAILABLE COPY Department of Energy BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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BEST AVAILABLE COPY of nuclear explosives, contributed to the program activity to NTS. LRL, assisted by-Sandia Laboratory of Albuquerque, New Mexico, carried on extensive chemical high explosive experiments to create small craters in a program to obtain data on displacement of earth by shallow underground detonations. This program was climaxed by the Scooter detonation, in which a 500-ton charge of TKT centered 125 feet under the*-“earth1 s surface was detonated in the Yucca Flat portion of the Test Site on October 13, I960. Other Plowshare activities include investigation of past and current underground shots for data applicable to peaceful uses of nuclear explosives and- probably some detonations specifically for Plowshare will be conducted at NTS. In addition to its projects in other NTS areas -- Project Pluto, the Plowshare Program and tunnel-related activities -- the Lawrence E.adiation Laborator}', Livermore, has for several years used the Test Site for field laboratory type experimental work involving the detonation of chemical explosives. As announced by ' - the AEC in June 1960, such activities were to be concentrated in an area known as the -410 Area, and located northwest of Mercury. A Ic-foot diameter hollow steel sphere, on which bids were received by the Corxnission in Las Vegas on June 15, 1959, and publicly BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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announced, has been fabricated by the Chicago Stidge anti Iron ’ Corripany and transported to the NTS for the conduct of hydro dynamic studies involving small chemical detonations which ttill be contained1 in the sphere. The It. U. Daum Construction Company of Havfthorne, California, is constructing a facilitj' for instal lation of the steel sphere under a $1,924,139 contract amended Since the Test Site first iT3s used in 1551, various agencies of the 'department of Defense have conducted experiments there from time to tine because of geographical isolation, existing facilities, existing radiation fields from previous nuclear detonations, or because of other advantages. Such experiments in the recent past have included chemical high explosive detonations and a seismic profiling survey to define underground geological structures, conducted by United Electro dynamics, Ino, of Pasadena, California, for the Department of Field Command, Defense Atomic Support Agency of Sandia Base, at Albuquerque, hew Ilexico, currently is conducting a program in'which non-nuclear weapons components are subjected to fire in an effort to determine the vulnerability to fire of weapons in storage or transit. Experiments in the program are conducted .from tine to Department of Energy BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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BEST AVAILABLE COPY orce Special Weapons Center of Albuquerquein x-eoru, blotoi out -.vith jet aircraft engine 'exhaust^gases experiment, because it night interfere with Project Pluto "test be resumed’ later inwill r training for military personnel is 'conducted at on time to time by Field'jConmand, .DASA’^-^CIhfe/Availtest detonations conducted several years ago makes the_Test^Site a ion for such training open-air laboratory forite also serves as a those measures which serve to improve man's ability to ..understand", the impact of nuclear explosions onjiiimself and. his■environment._ ! ercises and surveys which utilize the unique character-projects conceived and'designed under AEC Department of Energy

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BEST AVAILABLE COPY sponsorship, are conducted under the direction of the Civil Sffects Test Organization of the AEC s Division of-Biology and Medicine.1 Following the customary practice, much ,of the work is performed under contract by universities, technical and scientific organizations. and other contractors. A valuable result of the programs has been the development of techniques and mechanisms for the simulation of effects which formerly were obtainable only during actual weapons tests. In addition, the residual effects of the 1951-58 full-scale weapons tests are useful in radiation field and blast studies heretofore possible only at laboratory installations. Three universities are participating in ecological studies with the broad objective of reaching ccncli:sions on the response of the ■ environment to past nuclear tests. Botanists from Highlands University of Las Vegas, Kew Ilenico, are conducting a long range . study of possible effects on the plants. A related project, the study of the snail animals native to the area, is being done by scientists from Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Scientists from the Atonic Energy Project of the’University of California at Los Angeles have long been active in the study of fallout in and around the Test Site. Current research work is associated with environmental contamination in Jackass Flats from tests of nuclear propulsion developmental reactors there. A Mobile ?>.adiological Measuring Unit, perfected by Edgerton, GermasBEST AVAILABLE COPY

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BEST AVAILABLE COPY hausen and Grier, Inc., is employed to simulate the ionizing radiation field which accompanies fallout. The apparatus uses one or two radioactive cobalt-60 sources which can be moved through a plastic hose at a carefully controlled rate by a hydraulic pump. The long hose, up to more than a mile, is arrayed around and over the structure to be surveyed in a manner which makes the moving . source simulate the radiation frot^ fallout. Studies .are made of the energy spectrum and the shielding against radiation afforded by conventional structures, e.g., test houses with and without basements, and special structures such as shelters. Holmes and ,-- ' ' s i'arver, Inc., engineers, have participated in this work, doing architectural-engineering studies of practical shelter designs. Ddgerton, Germeshausen and Grier, Inc., have also made studies of the total effects of nuclear explosions on the environment near the’, zero points, the locations at which nuclear explosions occurred during the period of testing. The summations take into account the total blast loading, total thermal effects, and total ionizing radiation dose for all explosions at a particular point. The data are of special value to the ecological programs. , . In connection with the work, studies have been made of radiationinduced changes in the crystalline structure of earth minerals found in the soil in areas near past nuclear detonations. Prelim inary investigation suggests that application of the principle of bepartment of Energy ARCHIVES BEST AVAILABLE COPY

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thermonuclear luminescence or a dosimetric technique may be of to the ground. A radiation source grid for the calibration of radiation detection instruments carried in aircraft was constructed in the Frenchman Flat portion of the Test Site in 1960, and has been used six times. The grid, about 2,000 by 2,000-feet ,array, consists of 565 pipes driven into the level earth in a regular, geometric pattern^ ■ VThen in each pipe. Various radionuclides, for example cobalt-60 and *» ’ cesium-137, are used according to the requirements. Sources may be placed, removed and changed in a short time and with but small radiation doses to personnel. During the weapons test series in 1957 and 1958, light frame houses similar to those in Japan were constructed at KTS in the vicinity of shot sites. The radiation shielding characteristics of …