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OPtiATION CASTLE - STATUS OF LASL AND UCRL PROGRAMS Note by the Secretary ._The Division of Military.Application has submitted for the,information of the Commission the_ two attached letters which ,give a brieflresume of the status-of the programs .at the Los *Alamos Scientific‘ Laboratory and the University of California. - Rad'iation‘Laboratory. The Division of Military Application has advised LASL to proceed at once with their proposed program from a technical viewpoint, but stated that the date of CASTLE will _ not be firm until discussions with the DOD have been completed and agreement has been reached on the proposed programs. Deputy General Kanager 8 General Counsel 9 When separated from enclosures San Francisco Oprns. . 13 Santa Fe Operations 14
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. This document consists df 7 pages Director of Military Application Although the annual progrartisubmission of Scientific Laboratory does not ordinarily occur the Los Alamos until about the. . first of each calendar year, recent events strongly suggest the advisability of furnishing your office with advance information concerning the general nature of the test program which we will . . _ propose in our forthcoming formal presentation. The extremely successful behavior of the recent MIKE shot has emphasized, not only the important future of .radiation implosion, b-it the-practical fact that a cryogenic thermonuclear system work&. Subject, of course, to important additional information to be obtained regarding thermonuclear systems and radiation tiplosion engineering in Operation UPSHOT, we believe that the n2i.n outl'lnes of Operation CASTLE can now be forecast for planning purposes along the following lines.. The Los Alazgs Scientific Labsrztory i?;aypresently be expected to propose four shots for CASTLE havi-ns the follorsinS
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The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory further wishes to propose that Operation CASTLE now be firmly scheduled for the spring of 1954. I?e recognize that this date differs from that. tentatively discussed up to the present time, but there now appear to us to be'a number of compelling reasons which support this proposal, and which mk‘e an earlier date inprectical and
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1.::The UPSHOT program, although-it has not been formally proposed as yet, will.conta3.n at least two and perhaps three shots which well into May 1953 and may be subject to Still ,. further delays. The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory . believes that several months are required for the evaluation and proper application of UPSHOT results to CASTLE designs, and that an earlier date for CASTLE will.make it unlikely tha.tthere will be full use of the _ jeopardizing the subsequent program or-of making it . impossible to employ the otherwise possible technical .'. -2.. tests has long been problematical. and has beire6subject to further and further delay. There is now a real question as to whether any earlier date than the spring of 1954 for CASTLE would-be possible in any event for devices requiring this substance. Such a date is also necessary beta n time required for;&&, Lie for the a Los Alamos decision which, itself, will not be firmly made until after UPSHOT. 3. From the practical standpoint of test operations the time between UPSHOT and CASTLE as earlier proposed is too short and is becoming even more-so with UPSHOT delays and postponements. Furthermore, the length of ‘. the CASTLE test operation proposed (particularly when supplemented by the Liver-more proposals) makes it essential that a season at EniFetok be picked-when the weather is as good as possible and, when the inevitable shot day postponements occur, the consequent delay in the program does not lead to times of still worse weather but rather to better weather. Finally, we . belleve it impractical, if not impossible, to require civilian test personnel and task force personnel to be overseas during the latter part of December. 4. The tix,erequired to prepare&s$& test is, in the opinion of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, an absolute minimum on the schedule proposed and that no earlier test of is possible under _. -any set of circums is a serious concern.of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory that - appropriate military logistic support for a system of _ this nature ian bkz ready in time to provide this feature of real capability for emergency use in the event of_
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The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Is aware of the problem presented by the fact that a test of a very large yield system _ has been successfully conducted, exists In this but that actual weapon capa+lity I-’ capability for the . %z. primarily dependent upon not strictly a function of when the device may or may not have -been tested. The actual national capability, assuming the device being made Is reasonably likely to work as predicted, is essen- . _ tially unaffected by the actual date of a test as long as devices are fabricated at the maximum rate permitted by the ava.ilability of materials. On the other hand, if t. the national capability remains in the field until extensive further 'investig or some other type of devi.cei%as an example) is provided. . We are also aware that a sugikz$ the operation into two phases -_ ion may-be'made to divide one in the fall of 1953 and one in the spring of 1954. We are strongly opposed to such a proposal on-both practical and technical grounds. Not only does-it. require almost continual overseas residence for task force and _ technical personnel for a six months period and conflicts with a possible DOMINO. operation (see below).but, we believe, would _ lead to no earlier capability; We have pointed out earlier strong reasons for providing a longer time interval-between UPSHOT and CASTLE as weil as the extreme doubt as to ~i.6 re shot earlier than the availabil its firing would be forced in the is. of course.,would not lead to a even in the unlikely posiibility that such a .shot-were to have-a _We are very much of the opinion that Presumably, if the.UPSHOT model is successful, a shot some time after this prototype scale test. yields of this size or greater are already available in Ather geometries, this situation presumably is not the origin of any , ring in the 'Spring of 1954 period, may either be still further postponed, or may occur, on a very limited basis, in Kevada In the fall of 1953. In the latter event, only the simplest experiments on fission devices would occur in which only measurements of yield on air drops were required. We wish to save this period for the possible exploitation of in case this experLyenta1 program at Los Alarnos cont"lnQe+*o show promise. However, in this event, we hope to carry out a test operation in a manner which will much more resemble the P&_KGSR operation of 1951 than the large joint task force spectacles which have more recently characterized the Nevada Proving Ground. We are presenting this advance information on this phase of the formal Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory program in view-of the urgency of making decisions relating to Eniwetok at the earliest possible date. In view of the concurrence which we have already received In informal discussions, we are proceeding to implement these decisions as rapidly as possible, We recognize that a test
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by experiments for Liver-more;will place a serious burden on the ':' task force and Its technical staff. We are, however, of.the opinion that .thls does not'yet present an. insuperable problem if ..’ certain technical administrative assistance can be received from Livermore in addition to the particular experimental program which- :they have agreed to,undertake in this operation. This matter,
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Division of Military Application its existence working out plans and working.over ideas to see:' what it could do to best carry out its mission of increasing the effort in the thermonculear program. These plans began to have some semblance of firmness on about November 1, 1952, and it is only since then that our.engineering and service organizations have been able to make a study of the feasibility 'and possible timing of the proposed weapons research program. The , proposed device test program was as follows: Brig. Gen. K.E. Fields Atomic Energy Commission ’ II. Operation Castle E)RL was to assist in the LASL program by carrying out the sort of diagnostic experimentation which had previously been b) UCRL was to design, produce, and test two thermonuclear devices, name&. the tstion is in each case alpha, ganex, and _ radiochemistry; but additional experiments such as phonex, very fast photography, and 'The feasibility and timing st&dy of the above program I. The Operation Upshot program can be-carried out as planned barring maJor accidents or unexpected . difficulties in processing,
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II. The diagnostic experiments for LASL can ,be done if'Castle shouid be as early as September .- probably not be done'in time,for'a test as early as September 1953, but could be done if Castle. IV. Any delay beyond spring 1954 in testing these devices would in our present opinion, result .' in an equal delay not only in our immediate objective.s,but also in-our long term contribution to . We therefore recommend that, in order,to optimize the UCRL contribution to both the long range and short range program, - _ --