Everything about Operation Plumbbob totally explained
Operation Plumbbob was a series of
nuclear tests conducted between
May 28 and
October 7,
1957 at the
Nevada Test Site, following
Operation Redwing, and preceding
Operation Hardtack I. It was the biggest, longest, and most controversial test series in the continental
United States.
Background
The operation was the sixth test series and consisted of 29
explosions, of which two didn't produce any nuclear
yield. 21 laboratories and government agencies were involved. While most Operation Plumbbob tests contributed to the development of
warheads for
intercontinental and
intermediate range
missiles, they also tested
air defense and
anti-submarine warheads with small yields. They included 43 military effects tests on civil and military structures,
radiation and bio-medical studies, and aircraft structural tests. Operation Plumbbob had the tallest tower tests to date in the U.S. nuclear testing program, as well as high-altitude
balloon tests. One nuclear test involved the largest troop maneuver ever associated with U.S. nuclear testing.
Approximately 18,000 members of the U.S.
Air Force,
Army,
Navy and
Marines participated in exercises
Desert Rock VII and
VIII during Operation Plumbbob. The military was interested in knowing how the average foot-soldier would stand up, physically and psychologically, to the rigors of the tactical
nuclear battlefield.
Studies were conducted of radiation contamination and
fallout from a simulated accidental detonation of a weapon; and projects concerning earth motion, blast loading and
neutron output were carried out.
Nuclear weapons safety experiments were conducted to study the possibility of a nuclear weapon detonation during an accident. On
July 26 1957, a safety experiment, "Pascal-A" was detonated in an unstemmed hole at NTS, becoming the first underground shaft nuclear test. The knowledge gained here would provide data to prevent nuclear yields in case of accidential detonations, for example a
plane crash.
The
Rainier shot, conducted
September 19 1957, was the first fully contained underground nuclear test, meaning that no fission products were vented into the atmosphere. This test of 1.7
kilotons could be detected around the world by
seismologists using ordinary seismic instruments. The Rainier test became the
prototype for larger and more powerful underground tests.
Radiological effects
Plumbbob released 58,300
kilocuries (2.16
EBq) of
radioiodine (I-131) into the atmosphere. This produced total civilian radiation exposures amounting to 120 million
person-rads of thyroid tissue exposure (about 32% of all exposure due to continental nuclear tests). Statistically speaking, this level of exposure would be expected to eventually cause about 38,000 cases of
thyroid cancer, leading to some 1,900 deaths. No hard data is available on the long-term civilian effects of these tests.
In addition to civilian exposure, troop exercises conducted near the ground near shot "Smoky" exposed over three thousand servicemen to relatively high levels of radiation. A survey of these servicemen in 1980 found significantly elevated rates of
leukemia: ten cases, instead of the baseline expected four.
List of tests
The tests comprising Operation Plumbbob were as follows in TNT equivalent:
The first nuclear propelled manmade object in space?
According to
urban legend, a
manhole cover was accidentally launched from its shaft during an underground nuclear test in the
1950s, at great enough speed to achieve
escape velocity. The myth is based on a real incident during the
Pascal-B nuclear test, where a heavy (900 kg) steel plate cap was blasted off the test shaft at an unknown velocity, and appears as a blur on a single frame of film of the test, and was never recovered. A calculation before the event gave a predicted speed of 6 times Earth
escape velocity, but the calculation is unlikely to have been accurate and they didn't believe that it would leave the Earth in reality. After the event, Dr. Robert R. Brownlee described the best estimate of the cover's speed from the photographic evidence as "going like a bat!!"
This incident was used as part of the technical justification for the
Orion project.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Operation Plumbbob'.
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