PHYSICAL RESEARCH
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\ CHEMISTRY RESEARCH
Project MICE Qaaaay
Studies continued on the feasibility of producing plutonium,tritium, and uranium 233 from
a confined nuclear explosion. The scope of this project has not changed since reported in the
July-September 1956 Quarterly Progress Report. The project continues to entail the investi-
gation of the economics involved in the production and recovery of special nuclear materials
following a completely confined underground explosion under appropriate conditions of a thermonuclear device enclosed in a blanket of fertile material.
The U. S. Geological Survey is studying the geological aspects, and the chemical and en-
gineering problems are being investigated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the U. S.
Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory. These studies are closely coordinated with related
activities in underground testing of nuclear weapons and the PLOWSHARE program. Two
crucial problems under investigation include the determination of the extent to which the special
nuclear materials are mixed in the surrounding matrix, and the possibility of recovering gaseous products, particularly tritium, by prompt venting of the detonated area. These problems
are being investigated in connection with (1) the results of the Rainier shot, which was detonated
in September 1957 and was the first wholly contained underground nuclear shot, (2) Phase II of
Operation HARDTACK, and (3) the Gnomeevent, the underground detonation in a salt formation
scheduled for the summer of 1959 as a part of the PLOWSHARE program. Information obtained
from these studies will be used in conjunction with a recently completed feasibility study, to
determine the future scope and direction of the MICE project. (Project PLOWSHARE is dis-
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cussed on page 41.) (End of GERction.)