Correspondence in January 1959 indicates some discussion in planning relative to possible missile impact location systems in the Eniwetok area, perhaps with reference to upcoming R&D testing on missile systems. Eu PMR seems to be playing a heavy role in the overall itemw e—-cresadd program, study by Headquarters ARDC dated January 1959 covers the Atomic Weapon mvrseeatarciecreee. . ffects Test Pr ogram addresse d to Operation WIL TLLO LOW N scheduled for EPG7 11960. In brief it states that "In gen eral, these Atomic Tests Pro posals re desi fafa. : esigned to obtnatty ain inf ormati on on Phenomena of. high alt itude explosions alli istic missile and ti * * . satellite destruction mec hanisms, . . . * ‘ BY hlackout and other ommunicat atio i ns dis istu tur r bances, the ARGUS effect.. and protective construction ©apons carriers and sounding rockets," ‘ In January of 59 Molnar of Sandia proposed to DMA an AEC high altitude «test to be carried out by the Labs, fired from Johnston Island to a eee hei ght of like 100 kilometers and instrumented heavily by the AEC 2s Cys, Laboratories. The planned date was no earlier than 1960 or 1961. £ Correspondence over the next few months makes it quite clear that separate AEC and DoD thinking is developing diverse ideas of what high altitudes effects programs might look like. The DoD planning effort seems to be centered in AFSWP, the forerunner of DASA. The first meetings addressing coordinating these efforts took place in mid-April 59. From this time on planning on the AEC side seemed to be done jointly between Sandia and LASL and the code name for the committee was BUZZER and it was chaired by Taschek of LASL. Note that there is reference to the past accomplishments in planning for such testing by a Panofsky panel. Later in the year, increasing interest is shown in AEC participation, | tarting in Jenuary support and interest in high altitude weapon effects. and AFSWP, ARPA ef59, joint discussions between the Military, that is, detonaaltitude high and the AEC began to address the joint planning for such or n detectio year, tions effects studies and a little later in the e. detonations and surface detonations by satellit f | |