4.18.1 Objectives of the Safety Experiments. Except for one PROJECT 57 test, the safety experiments were conducted for the same purpose: to determine the weapons’ susceptibility to nuclear detonation during accidents in storage and transportation. High-explosive portions of these devices were fired to simulate accidental detonation and to determine the potential for such firings to result in a significant nuclear yield. The test results were used to develop devices that could withstand shock, blast, fire, and accidents without initiating a nuclear chain reaction and producing a nuclear detonation. The initial PROJECT 57 test was conducted to spread alpha-emitting material (plutonium) in a defined area to study the biological effects of alpha radiation and to test monitoring and decontamination procedures (22: 23,8). 4.18.2 Test Operations at the Safety Experiments. DOD personnel participation during these experiments is difficult to determine. Although most of the employees of LANL and LLNL were civilians, some DOD personnel also were assigned to these organizations. some of the project activities engaged DOD participation. In addition, Eight AFSWC person- nel and two participants from the 50th Chemical Service Platoon performed field work for one of the programs during PROJECT 57, the alpha-dispersion experiment. Moreover, a DOD effects project was conducted at four of the safety experiments. Other DOD participation involved cloud-tracking and cloud-sampling missions (22: 12; 17: 184,185). 4.18.3 Dose Summary for the Safety Experiments. Section 4.17 presents information on personnel doses at the 18 HARDTACK II safety experiments. The limited dosimetry information on the other safety experiments indicates four doses exceeding the 3.9 rem limit at Experiment 4 of PROJECT 56. The readings, which may have resulted from the participants’ having handled hot instrumentation cable, were 28, 18.5, 13.7, and 4.3 rem (22: 21). 4.19 OPERATION DOMINIC I. Operation DOMINIC, like Operation HARDTACK, consisted of two phases: DOMINIC I, the oceanic nuclear tests discussed in this section; and DOMINIC II, 129