European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 17, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Winces against backdrop of wide debate canister and Oul to recording devices in nearby trailers parked on the surface of i he desert Over the years As nuclear tests have become More Complex skills have increased the number of cables has risen from an average of 70 in 1960 10 More than 125 today. .-.,. When everything is ready the package is slowly lowered by a huge Crane into the deep Hole which is then carefully filled with Sand and other materials especially designed to keep radiation and radioactive gases trapped beneath the Earth. On of Day the test site is cleared of All personnel except a Small group of scientists and Security guards who drava Oul to a trailer known As the red Shack to electronically Arm the weapon. Two of the scientists carry a special briefcase and a bag of Liny cubes Hal have numbers painted on their sides. They alternately pick cubes out of the bag and punch the numbers into an Arm enable device in the briefcase generating a random code that is sent to the weapon on a special electrical Cable. The scientists then drive across the desert to the control Point in a Mountain pass overlooking the test site. There. In a High technology Complex surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire they again open i heir briefcase and Send the same random code to the weapon. It is now armed. In Trie War room at Point the Energy department test controller then checks with numerous advisers on the stale of Security and the weather. Winds Musl not be blowing out of the Northwest lest an accidental leak of radioactive Gas end up drilling to Las vegas some 100 Miles away. Such a leak is said to be a Fify unlikely. The last Large one which prompted. Various reforms occurred in 1970 i everything a ready the test controller gives the go ahead and secret coded signal is sent to the red Shack no single Button is pushed. Instead the signal starts a computer Hal automatically cycles through a 5 to-15 minute program hat ends with the detonation. At any Point the controller can halt the countdown by pressing a red Slop Bullon. At the beginning of the blast the instruments gather their data Belore being vaporized by the expanding fireball. ,. In a Lew seconds the ground Shock reaches the control Point where scientists May feel a gentle wave like rocking of the Earth. With detonations of High yield die ground Shock eventually reaches Las vegas causing tall buildings to Sway. At ground 2ero, the nuclear out an underground cavity up to several Hundred Leel in diameter. Minutes hours or Days alter the explosion his can collapse causing a Crater to form in i he surface of. He desert. Scores of such craters pock the surface near Yucca Flat. ,.most nuclear insights Are gleaned weeks and months. Following Iho explosion As scientists pore Over data. The diagnostics have gotten increasingly Complex Over the last five years said Ferderber. We re even starting to question ii we re getting Loo much Biff on each test. Things can get Loo Large. There Are electro magnello interactions Between experiments in a Cansler and one Experiment May scatter radiation Inlo another. So it in t a clearcut situation where bigger is addition to canisters filled with instruments another Way scientists measure the yield and characteristics o a through Radiochemistry. Gas samples can be taken during the test through a special hollow Cable or engineers can Drill Back to ground Zero and Sample debris from the explosion according to Ferderber advances in Sucre sampling techniques Are made by adding minute amounts of chemical tracers to weapons. Afler the explosion chemists measure these tracers and their reaction products to better understand the intensely hot and rapid processes thai occur at the heart of the explosion there s a whole spectrum of things you can learn. He said. The explosive test of an entirely new weapon design such As the a Ray laser being developed Lor president Reagan s program of missile defense might be used to verily theoretical concepts. A More mature weapon such As the warhead Lor the my missile might be exploded to verify its strength. Occasionally weapons already in the nation s stockpile Are exploded to Lesl their reliability. Some critics contend that weapon scientists purposely design warheads to be unreliable in an Effort to avoid a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. Weapon scientists deny this charge saying economic and military considerations have made their creations More sophisticated and fragile Over the years. While soms 80 percent of the nation s nuclear tests occur in vertical shafts beneath the desert the rest take place in horizontal tunnels dug into the Side of a Rocky Mesa at Yucca Flat. These tests Are conducted by the defense nuclear Agency to study the effects of weapons on military equipment rather than the performance of weapons on military equipment rather than the performance of weapons themselves the most a Eccl explosion code. Named mighty Oak was such a horizontal isl and was. Designed to assess the ability of various warheads and missiles to survive intense bursts of nuclear radiation. New tunnels and tests Are constantly being prepared deep inside Rainier Mesa. Hard hat workers ride diesel powered rail cars through More than 20 Miles of tunnels. We re running out of real estate in Here,".yelled . Ashbaugh a civil Engineer who works Tor the defense nuclear Agency. In these horizontal nuclear tests a Long tapered Metal pipe leads form the
