The test device, codenamed Hamlet, was detonated atop a 300-foot (91 m) tower,[5] the device produced a yield of 32 kilotonnes.[6] The device had a diameter of 56 inches (1,400 mm) and a length of 66 inches (1,700 mm). Its weight was 4 short tons (3.6 t).[3]
The device was designed by Ted Taylor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory of the United States of America, and is distinguished from all others because it was the most efficient pure fission design with a yield below 100 kt ever tested.[5] The design utilized a new hollow core concept.[7] The concept was termed as "radical implosion system" aiming towards reducing the amount of fissionable materials present in the weapon's core while generating moderately high yield.[8]: 201
Detonation
[edit]A picture taken about a hundredth of a second after ignition.
The device was detonated in Area 3 of the test site.[1]
Monitoring personnel including United States of America Atomic Energy Commission personnel monitored the resultant radioactivefallout in areas including St.George, Utah.[9] Fallout from the test fell on 3046 counties of the United States.[3] Due to a miscalculation and change in wind-direction,[6] this Upshot–Knothole test released an unusually large amount of fallout (the highest of any test in the continental U.S.), much of which later accumulated in the vicinity of St. George, Utah. Because of this, the shot would become known as "Dirty Harry" in the press when details were released publicly. It would be among the most controversial of the U.S. nuclear weapon tests. Two years after the blast, Howard Hughes filmed the motion picture The Conqueror near St. George. The cast and crew totaled 220 people. By the end of 1980, as ascertained by People magazine, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer and 46 had died of the disease, including the main stars John Wayne and Susan Hayward.
Hicks (1981) evaluated the gamma-exposure rates and levels of radionuclides. Within the report by Hicks he was required to omit data of U-233, U-235, U-238 & Pu-239, and Pu-240 in order to make the report unclassified.[10][11]
In measurement of cumulative exposures rates of populations within a 300-mile radius of the test site, of the period 1951 to 1959, the Upshot–Knothole tests was found to have produced 50% (rounded figure) of exposure rate within the population. Of the 50%, 75% (rounded figure) was due to the test-shot Harry.[12]
^U.S. Department of Energy / Nevada Operations Office, United States Nuclear Tests - July 1945 through September 1992, December 2000, DOE/NV-209 Rev 15Archived 2006-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
^Newsletter published and written by the (United States of America) National Association of Atomic Veterans, Inc. (ed. R.J.Ritter) Retrieved 2015-11-28 (c.f. Atomic veteran)
^U.S. Department of State - Document published by U.S.A. Department of State, U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual 12 Diplomatic Security. Retrieved 2015-11-29
Rice, James. 2023. "Atmospheric Atomic Testing in Nevada, Shot Harry, and the Agency of Nature." Western Historical Quarterly, 54(3): 222-238, https://doi.org/10.1093/whq/whad081.
