Operation Upshot-Knothole Nuclear Test Film 1953 Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP)

more at http://quickfound.net/

'The Department of Energy, in cooperation with the Department of Defense, declassified a series of historical films on the nuclear weapons program. They were converted to videotape format to help preserve the films and to facilitate the declassification and release process. These films document the history of the development of nuclear weapons, starting with the first bomb tested at Trinity Site in southeastern New Mexico in July 1945.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Upshot–Knothole

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Operation Upshot–Knothole was a series of eleven nuclear test shots conducted in 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. It followed Operation Ivy and preceded Operation Castle.

Over 21,000 soldiers took part in the ground exercise Desert Rock V in conjunction with the Grable shot. Grable was a 280mm shell fired from the "Atomic Cannon" and was viewed by a number of high-ranking military officials.

The test series was notable as containing the first time an atomic artillery shell was fired (shot Grable), the first two shots (both fizzles) by University of California Radiation Laboratory—Livermore (now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and for testing out some of the thermonuclear components that would be used for the massive thermonuclear series of Operation Castle. One primary device (RACER) was tested in thermonuclear system mockup assemblies of TX-14, TX-16, and TX-17/TX-24, to examine and evaluate the behaviour of radiation cases and the compression of the secondary geometries by the primary's x-rays prior to full-scale testing during Castle. Following RACER's dodgy performance, the COBRA primary was used in the emergency capability ALARM CLOCK, JUGHEAD, RUNT I, RUNT II thermonuclear devices, as well as in the SHRIMP device. RACER IV (as redesigned and proof-tested in the Simon test) was employed as primary for the ZOMBIE, RAMROD and MORGENSTERN devices...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site

The Nevada National Security Site (N2S2 or NNSS), previously the Nevada Test Site (NTS), is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the city of Las Vegas. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving Grounds, the site was established on January 11, 1951 for the testing of nuclear devices, covering approximately 1,360 square miles (3,500 km2) of desert and mountainous terrain. Nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a 1-kiloton-of-TNT (4.2 TJ) bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat on January 27, 1951. Many of the iconic images of the nuclear era come from the NTS. NNSS is operated by Mission Support and Test Services, LLC.

During the 1950s, the mushroom clouds, from the 100 atmospheric tests, could be seen from almost 100 mi (160 km) away. The city of Las Vegas experienced noticeable seismic effects, and the mushroom clouds, which could be seen from the downtown hotels, became tourist attractions. St. George, Utah, received the brunt of the fallout of above-ground nuclear testing in the Yucca Flats/Nevada Test Site. Westerly winds routinely carried the fallout of these tests directly through St. George and southern Utah. Marked increases in cancers, such as leukemia, lymphoma, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, bone cancer, brain tumors, and gastrointestinal tract cancers, were reported from the mid-1950s through 1980. A further 921 nuclear tests were carried out underground.

From 1986 through 1994, two years after the United States put a hold on full-scale nuclear weapons testing, 536 anti-nuclear protests were held at the Nevada Test Site involving 37,488 participants and 15,740 arrests, according to government records.

The Nevada Test Site contains 28 areas, 1,100 buildings, 400 miles (640 km) of paved roads, 300 miles of unpaved roads, 10 heliports, and two airstrips.

Currently, the Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS), the successor of the NSTech, is the civilian contractor for the test site's management and further oversees the overall operations of the test site. The MSTS manages and operates the Nevada Test Site for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) while The Security Protective Force (SPF) is responsible for providing the safeguards and security to the NNSS...