Nevada Test Site

November 1951 nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. Test is shot "Dog" from Operation Buster. This had a force of 21 kilotons. It was the first U.S. nuclear field exercise on land. The troops shown are only 6 miles from the blast.

Craters along the test side

The Nevada Test Site is an area set aside for the testing of nuclear weapons. It is looked after by the United States Department of Energy. It is in Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Las Vegas.

The site was begun on January 11, 1951. It covers an area of 1,350 square miles (3,500 km²) of desert and mountain lands. Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton (4 terajoule) bomb. This was the same explosive force as a bomb using 1,000 metric tons of TNT.^[1] This bomb was dropped on Frenchman Flat on January 27, 1951. Many of the famous photos of the nuclear age were taken at the Nevada Test Site.

When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department said that more than 300 million curies of radiation remained, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the United States.^[2]

Nevada Test Site Media

A map that details the federal land in southern Nevada, showing the site
This handbill was distributed 16 days before the first nuclear device was detonated at the site.
Mushroom cloud seen from downtown Las Vegas.
Crater from the 1962 "Sedan" nuclear test as part of Operation Plowshare. The 104 kiloton blast displaced 12 million tons of earth and created a crater 320 feet deep and 1,280 feet wide. (Look to the size of the roads in the bottom-right of the picture, and the observation deck at the lower-right edge of the crater, for a sense of scale)
This model two-story house was constructed 10,500 feet (3,200 m) away from the ground-zero of the Apple-2 nuclear test.
Members of Desert Lenten Experience hold a prayer vigil during the Easter period of 1982 at the entrance to the site.
WMD/counter-terrorism training exercise at the site.
I-131 Fallout Exposure in rads
Nuclear explosions in various areas of the site
Tunnel in the U1a Complex within Area 1