capable of sufficient flexibility to permit the firing to occur under upuxtung
opportune weather conditions and in coordination with other instrumentation."
7.
Does each system give assurance of being able to accomplish the required program
within available time?
Assuming the Bluegill and Starfish events and a final
cut of f of 1 July, Starbird places a requirement of the second nuclear shot being
done by 15 June to take into account delays.
The Polaris, requiring ship conversion
and a payload redesign could be scheduled for a test in early May, followed by the
nuclear shots on 1 June and 15 June.
However, unforeseen engineering, development,
or ship~conversion delays could retard these dates and it would not be possible to
advance either of the firing dates without forcgoing the proposed systems tests,
TheThor program which would include a Vandenberg shot should be capable of executing
the two tests on 15 and 30 May, providing some time cushion.
The Redstone would
permit the greatest cushion with a certification tests at Johnston on the Ist of Apr.
Se
and perhaps nuclear tests at 15 day intervals thereafter.
8.
ee
Does each system give assurance against catastrophe and personnel injury?
None of the three systems has yet provided an overall safety analysis or sub-
mitted complete hardware designs.
The proposed warheads are 1 point safe.
"As vy
of now, no one of the three systems would appear to be ruled out by a lesser chance
to give sufficient protection against premature nuclear detonation or nuclear
contamination.”
As for the eye burn problem, Starbird states that we don't know
as much as we would like to about this but he personally is convinced that for the
shots planned, a firing from Johnston would be entirely safe at distances like
Ohau.
Starbird then goes on to make the following recommendations:
"The Thor system ,
selected for the qualified by the system test described in a paragraph above be
jJaunch.
it gives
My primary reason for selected the Thor over the Polaris is that
period allowed.
greater assurance of conducting the planned firings within the
e is the Thor's higher
My primary reason for recommending the Thor over the Redston
the 1000 kilometer or
altitude capability and my belief that we may want to fire
FE