NEVADA TEST SITE
Boltzmann, planned as the first shot in the Summer 1957 series, was scheduled to be ready May 15. It was re-scheduled to May 16 to give more time for installation of technical instruments. The shot was first posponed May 15 and has been postponed for 24 hours on each of 9 days since, or a total of 10 postponements to date. Each postponement beginning with May 15 has been to avoid unacceptable fallout on communities around the Test Site.
By comparison, the Open Shot of the Spring 1955 Series was scheduled for April 26 and was fired May 5.
Boltzmann is to be a 500-foot tower shot in Area 7, Yucca Flat, approximately 11 miles from News Nob, and is a Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory device with a designed yield approximating one-half nominal {nominal is considered about 20 kilotons}.
Rockets will not be fired at the time of detonation to provide a smoke pattern for recording aerial shock waves.
Associated experiments and participation as of this date would include:
Desert Rock: 250 Armed Forces observers and participants.
Air Force: 21 USAF and Navy aircraft in participation and support roles. (Six F-86s will make training flight on the first shot, whether Boltzmann or Franklin, in addition to the 21 other aircraft.}
NATO Military Observers: Originally 34, now decreased to 14.
Civil Defence Observers: Originally 45, now decreased to 10
News Correspondents: Originally 62, present total unknown.
Twenty-three experiments on the sequence timer.
No animals to be used in military or civil effects experiments.
Effects experiments will include gamma and neutron radiation measurments, USAF studies. Five technicians from the Food and Drug Administration will be trainees in measuring and monitoring radioactive fallout on the Test Site, to prepare for future food contamination tests.
As of 11:59 p.m., May 24, the Office of Test Information has issued 18 go-and-no-go advisories.
While the fireball from this device will not touch the ground, will not suck up surface debris into the cloud and so will have much less close-by fallout than if it did touch the ground, the tower and instrumentation do contribute heavy particles to the cloud which will come down as nearby fallout. Test management must therefore wait for winds in acceptable directions of fairly low speeds and with some shear.
Residents of nearby areas have been advised that the fireball will not be visible by direct line-of-sight unless they are on mountain peaks. It is suggested to highway travelers, however, that if their vehicle is facing toward the Test Site at shot time (approximately 30 minutes before sunrise} they should pull off the road, watch for the flash, then proceed.