Session Q68: Politics and Techniques: Nuclear Testing in the Decades after World War II

Introduction to Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1945 to 1992

Between 1945 and 1992, the United States performed well over 1,000 full-scale nuclear tests. This presentation tells the incredible story of weapons testing, from the remarkable Trinity test of July 16, 1945 to the nation's most-recent test, Julin-Divider. The presentation discusses why, where, and how the U.S. performed tests, as well as shows videos of many historic events.   

Total Immersion in Computing

March of 2022 marked the 70th anniversary of the MANIAC, the first all-electronic computer at Los Alamos. Construction of the MANIAC began at a time when electronic computers numbered only in the single digits worldwide, making each new system an important contributor to the computing field. Los Alamos played an outsized role in this development, with the MANIAC's first programmers and operators, many of whom were women who had worked as human computers, pioneering many of the methods and concepts that are now commonplace. When completed, the MANIAC became the Lab's frontline for cutting-edge numerical simulations that made possible the rapid development and testing of atomic and thermonuclear weapon designs that occurred during the 1950s. Test results were then used to calibrate the computer models to improve their capabilities. The simulation technologies and methods pioneered with the MANIAC became particularly critical for the Lab's weapons program when the 1958 moratorium halted testing, and computational modeling had to fill much of the resulting gap. In celebrating the MANIAC, this talk also celebrates the hard work and ingenuity of the people at Los Alamos who helped to invent the modern field of scientific computing, using vacuum tubes and paper tape to build a legacy that continues at the Lab today.   

Higher & Higher: Rockets for High-Altitude Nuclear Testing

From its beginnings, Sandia National Laboratories provided support for nuclear testing – atmospheric in the early years and underground through 1992, when U.S. nuclear testing stopped. Its central responsibilities included arming and fuzing of the test devices, packaging of payloads, and instrumentation and data gathering. By the mid-1950s, as the U.S. designed and executed high-altitude nuclear tests, engineers in the Lab’s aerodynamics group expressed an interest in designing rockets to support data collection more fully. This was a completely new capability within Sandia’s mission assignment, but it received management support and funding. The resulting suite of rockets both satisfied the internal program’s interests and carried telemetry for the subsequent high-altitude nuclear shots.

This paper will detail the deliberate growth of a new capability in designing and testing sounding rockets in support of high-altitude nuclear testing at Sandia in the 1950-1963 time period.

    

‘So sophisticated and so barbarous’: Britain’s resumption of nuclear testing, 1961-62

In 1958 worldwide diplomatic and scientific pressure led to a three-year international moratorium on nuclear testing.  After the Soviet Union broke this moratorium in September 1961, Britain and the United States agreed to resume testing together: Britain would use the American site in Nevada for underground testing, and the U.S. would use the British site at Christmas Island in the Pacific for a new series of atmospheric tests.  This paper examines British motivations.  How did scientists and politicians come together on this issue?  What was more important to whom: running the arms race, or constraining it?  Historians have suggested a harsh cold-war logic: that once Britain had successfully tested thermonuclear warheads (“H-bombs”) and secured a renewed atomic relationship with the U.S. in 1957-58, then it could afford the luxury of arms control.  However, analysis of archival materials, including records from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston, shows that Britain was always reluctant to test.  Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who called testing “so sophisticated and so barbarous,” literally prayed for a test ban.  Much of the military and scientific advice available to him belied stereotypes.  Even AWRE worked to support a test ban.  This paper will also assess Britain’s significant scientific work on test-ban verification.    

Knowing Better: Experts, the Public, and Above-Ground Nuclear Testing in Nevada

Although the era of above-ground nuclear weapons testing has ended, its history and legacy remain significant in American life. The Manhattan Project opened the door to atomic weapons, which became increasingly destructive and sophisticated in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the United States conducted one hundred above-ground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. In the subsequent decades, residents of regions downwind of the test site, known as "Downwinders," who were exposed to radioactive fallout, have claimed that their incidences of cancer, birth defects, and other ailments were caused by their exposure to fallout and the irresponsible federal oversight of nuclear testing. The federal government created aid policies, such as the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, and the American public has continued to distrust nuclear power. In order to evaluate past practices, to assess any harms and their due compensation, and to guide future standards, it is necessary to analyze the conduct of the experts who carried out above-ground nuclear testing in Nevada. This paper considers Downwinders' allegations alongside contemporary standards of radiation safety and expert consultations. It argues that testing officials practiced responsible conduct and that Downwinders did not experience sufficient radioactive exposure to cause the alleged harms.