The "Green Run" was a secret U.S. Government release of radioactive fission products during which date span, at the Hanford Site plutonium production facility?
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Green Run The "Green Run" was a secret U.S. Government release of radioactive fission products on December 2–3, 1949, at the Hanford Site plutonium production facility, located in Eastern Washington. Radioisotopes released at that time were supposed to be detected by U.S. Air Force reconnaissance. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the U.S. Government have revealed some of the details of the experiment. Sources cite 5500 to of iodine-131 released, and an even greater amount of xenon-133. The radiation was distributed over populated areas, and caused the cessation of intentional radioactive releases at Hanford until 1962 when more experiments commenced.
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Hanford Site The Hanford Site is a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including: Hanford Project, Hanford Works, Hanford Engineer Works and Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project in Hanford, south-central Washington, the site was home to the B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first nuclear bomb, tested at the Trinity site, and in Fat Man, the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan.
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Chernobyl Exclusion Zone The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation (Ukrainian: Зона відчуження Чорнобильської АЕС, "zona vidchuzhennya Chornobyl's'koyi AES" , Russian: Зона отчуждения Чернобыльской АЭС, "zona otchuzhdenya Chernobyl'skoyi AES" ) is an officially designated exclusion zone around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster. It is also commonly known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the 30 Kilometre Zone, or simply The Zone (Ukrainian: Чорнобильська зона, "Chornobyl's'ka zona" , Russian: Чернобыльская зона, "Chernobyl'skaya zona" ).
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Mark 17 nuclear bomb The Mark 17 and Mark 24 were the first mass-produced hydrogen bombs deployed by the United States. The two differed in their "primary" stages. The MK 17/24 bombs were 24 ft long, 61.4 in diameter. They weighed 21 tons. The Mark 17 had a yield in the range of 15 to 20 megatons TNT equivalent. Total production of Mk 17s was 200, and there were 105 Mk 24s produced, all between October 1954 and November 1955.
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Target Nevada (1951 film) Target Nevada Special Film Project (S.F.P.) 281 (1951) is a instructional documentary short film produced by United States Air Force (USAF). The film documents the story of the USAF support to the United States Atomic Energy Commission for 1949–1951 continental atom bomb tests. In an era of postwar "atomic scare" films, "Target Nevada" is a straightforward documentary film on nuclear weapons testing.
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Operation Sunbeam Operation Sunbeam was a series of four nuclear tests conducted at the United States of America's Nevada Test Site in 1962. "Operation Sunbeam" tested small, "tactical" nuclear warheads; the most notable was the "Davy Crockett". "Operation Sunbeam" was also known as "Operation Dominic II".
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United States Radium Corporation The United States Radium Corporation was a company, most notorious for its operations between the years 1917 to 1926 in Orange, New Jersey, in the United States that led to stronger worker protection laws. After initial success in developing a glow-in-the-dark radioactive paint, the company was subject to several lawsuits in the late 1920s in the wake of severe illnesses and deaths of workers (the Radium Girls) who had ingested radioactive material. The workers had been told that the paint was harmless. During World War I and World War II, the company produced luminous watches and gauges for the United States Army for use by soldiers.
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Superfund Superfund is a United States federal government program designed to fund the cleanup of sites contaminated with hazardous substances and pollutants. It was established as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). It authorizes federal natural resource agencies, primarily the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states and Native American tribes to recover natural resource damages caused by hazardous substances, though most states have and most often use their own versions of CERCLA. CERCLA created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The EPA may identify parties responsible for hazardous substances releases to the environment (polluters) and either compel them to clean up the sites, or it may undertake the cleanup on its own using the Superfund (a trust fund) and costs recovered from polluters by referring to the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Richard Perkins (scientist) Richard W. Perkins is a former scientist at the Hanford Site and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at Richland, Washington State. His research included study of nuclear reactors and their effect on their environment, study of the ash from the eruption of Mount St. Helens, and Operation "Star Wars." He also worked with the first moon rocks. Although too young to join, he joined the U.S navy to fight in WW2.
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Venona project The Venona project was a counterintelligence program initiated by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later the National Security Agency) that ran for nearly four decades, spanning 1943 to 1980. The purpose of the Venona project was the decryption of messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, e.g. the NKVD, the KGB (First Chief Directorate) and the GRU (military intelligence). During the 37-year duration of the Venona project, the Signal Intelligence Service obtained approximately 3,000 Soviet messages (only some of which were ever decrypted); the Signal-Intelligence yield included discovery of the Cambridge Five espionage ring in the UK and Soviet espionage of the Manhattan Project in the U.S. The Venona project remained secret for more than 15 years after it concluded, and some of the decoded Soviet messages were not declassified and published until 1995.
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Salted bomb A salted bomb is a nuclear weapon designed to function as a radiological weapon, producing enhanced quantities of radioactive fallout, rendering a large area uninhabitable. The term is derived both from the means of their manufacture, which involves the incorporation of additional elements to a standard atomic weapon, and from the expression "to salt the earth", meaning to render an area uninhabitable for generations. The idea originated with Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard, in February 1950. His intent was not to propose that such a weapon be built, but to show that nuclear weapon technology would soon reach the point where it could end human life on Earth. No intentionally salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested, however the UK tested a 1 kiloton bomb incorporating a small amount of cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer at their Tadje testing site in Maralinga range, Australia, on September 14, 1957. Furthermore the triple "taiga" nuclear salvo test, as part of the preliminary March 1971 Pechora–Kama Canal project, produced substantial amounts of Co-60, with this fusion generated neutron activation product being responsible for about half of the gamma dose now (2011) at the test site.
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Chicago Pile-3 Chicago Pile-3 (CP-3) was the first heavy water reactor in the world, going critical on 15 May 1944. It was used in the experimental physics work of the Metallurgical Laboratory for the Manhattan Project. CP-3 was in operation from 1943-1954 and was built near Palos Hills, Illinois on the former (i.e., original) site of Argonne National Laboratory. The site is now known as the Site A/Plot M Disposal Site and is situated within Red Gate Woods, part of the Cook County Forest Preserve system.
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Oppenheimer security hearing The Oppenheimer security hearing was a 1954 proceeding by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that explored the background, actions, and associations of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist who had headed the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, where he played a key part in the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. The hearing resulted in Oppenheimer's Q clearance being revoked. This marked the end of his formal relationship with the government of the United States, and generated considerable controversy regarding whether the treatment of Oppenheimer was fair, or whether it was an expression of anti-Communist McCarthyism.
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Green bullet Green bullet, green ammunition or green ammo are nicknames for a United States Department of Defense program to eliminate the use of hazardous materials from small arms ammunition and from small arms ammunition manufacturing. Initial objectives were elimination of ozone-depleting substances, volatile organic compounds, and heavy metals from primers and projectiles. These materials were perceived as causing difficulties through the entire life cycle of ammunition. The materials generated hazardous wastes and emissions at manufacturing facilities and use of ammunition caused contamination at shooting ranges. Potential health hazards made demilitarization and disposal of unused ammunition difficult and expensive.
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British contribution to the Manhattan Project Britain contributed to the Manhattan Project by helping initiate the effort to build the first atomic bombs in the United States during World War II, and helped carry it through to completion in August 1945 by supplying crucial expertise. Following the discovery of nuclear fission in uranium, scientists Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch at the University of Birmingham calculated, in March 1940, that the critical mass of a metallic sphere of pure uranium-235 was as little as 1 to , and would explode with the power of thousands of tons of dynamite. The Frisch–Peierls memorandum prompted Britain to create an atomic bomb project, known as Tube Alloys. Mark Oliphant, an Australian physicist working in Britain, was instrumental in making the results of the British MAUD Report known in the United States in 1941 by a visit in person. Initially the British project was larger and more advanced, but after the United States entered the war, the American project soon outstripped and dwarfed its British counterpart. The British government then decided to shelve its own nuclear ambitions, and participate in the American project.
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Green Salt Project The Green Salt Project (also known as the "Project 1-11") is an alleged secretive Iranian entity focusing on uranium processing, high explosives and a missile warhead design. The Green Salt Project derives its name from uranium tetrafluoride, also known as green salt, an intermediate product in the conversion of uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride — a toxic gas that can undergo enrichment or purification into fuel for nuclear reactors or bombs. Uranium tetrafluoride has also been used as the source of metallic uranium for Magnox reactor fuel elements via chemical reduction. Since the International Atomic Energy Agency began investigating Iranian nuclear activities in 2002, the IAEA has discovered a series of clandestine nuclear activities, some of which violated Iran’s safeguards agreement with the agency. The Green Salt Project is allegedly among these projects.
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Operation Argus Operation Argus was a series of United States low-yield, high-atmosphere nuclear weapons tests and missile tests secretly conducted during August and September 1958 over the South Atlantic Ocean. The ARGUS tests took 11 days from start to finish with the first launch on 27 August and the final launch on 6 September. They were performed by the Defense Nuclear Agency, in conjunction with the Explorer 4 space mission. Operation Argus was conducted between the nuclear test series "Operation Hardtack I" and "Operation Hardtack II". Contractors from Lockheed Aircraft Corporation as well as a few personnel and contractors from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission were on hand as well.
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Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll The nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll program was a series of 23 nuclear devices detonated by the United States between 1946 and 1958 at seven test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air and underwater. The test weapons produced a combined fission yield of 42.2 Mt of explosive power.
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S-50 (Manhattan Project) The S-50 Project was the Manhattan Project's effort to produce enriched uranium by liquid thermal diffusion during World War II. It was one of three technologies for uranium enrichment pursued by the Manhattan Project.
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Operation Booster Shot Operation Booster Shot was a rural aid program run by the United States in the Kingdom of Laos during March and April 1958. Its purpose was to influence Lao peasantry to vote during May National Assembly elections for those politicians the U.S. favored. Because of the lack of roads in Laos, Booster Shot became an air delivery operation. It proceeded somewhat haphazardly due to rushed planning. Although logistically successful, the end result was electoral victory by the communist candidates opposed to the U.S.
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Interim Committee The Interim Committee was a secret high-level group created in May 1945 by United States Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson at the urging of leaders of the Manhattan Project and with the approval of President Harry S. Truman to advise on matters pertaining to nuclear energy. Composed of prominent political, scientific and industrial figures, the Interim Committee had broad terms of reference which included advising the President on wartime controls and the release of information, and making recommendations on post-war controls and policies related to nuclear energy, including legislation. Its first duty was to advise on the manner in which nuclear weapons should be employed against Japan. Later, it advised on legislation for the control and regulation of nuclear energy. It was named "Interim" in anticipation of a permanent body that would later replace it after the war, where the development of nuclear technology would be placed firmly under civilian control. The Atomic Energy Commission was enacted in 1946 to serve this function.
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Nuclear history of the United States Nuclear history of the United States describes the history of nuclear affairs in the United States whether civilian or military.