rod I TF The documentation for Vortex at Site Able begins in the beginning of 1959| with a confidential document describing the site as a fast criticality . facility at the NTS and says the following things about it. "The installation will completely contain debris from detonated device assemblies including the fissile materials (plutonium, U255). The facility will be designed for a 150 lb explosive limit including nuclear yield. The total installation S ' required to fire one shot per week and to process all the debris is estimated to cost approximately $4 million dollars. '" <A somewhat abbreviated facility is estimated to cost approximately $2-1/2 million dollars. Experiments to conducted in such a facility are described as: (1) hydronuclear devices in which the mass of fissile material is adjusted to give a nuclear yield which is negligible when compared to the explosive in the assembly, (2) device safety test to dctermine the performance of ainormaiiy detonated configurations with nuclear yieids held within specified limits, and (3) equation of state hydrodynamic and initiator studies making use of fissile materials but giving no nuclear yield. A preliminary construction scnedule which would provide for construction to begin immediately indicates that the operational date for the site would be 1 August 1960. Note that discussion of such a facility and direction for people to consider the steps necessary to construct it was documented by a Mr. Bruce Crowley as early as May of 1958. Construction actually did take place and continued right up through the resump- tion of testing in 1961 with some initial types of testing planned for the - facility in 1962. The discussion around earlyy January [9229addr, essing the upcomi i of the Eniwetok Proving Ground or EPG Planning Board includes onossa tromReeves re various addres qe® sees. | will list. these addressees here | ; i mig peeve some correlstionj to a list of mem: moers of thhn E APSnPe poard Starbird, Rea > r Admiral Edward Parker who was head of Graves, H. &. Grier (EG&G), Sam Howel | (USAEC, Los Angeles), and Duane Sew el | (LRL). CH&N), F. W. Hohner 4 1959 ————— A 2Januacy TWX from Task Group 7.1 (LCDR Snure) to Cmdr. JTF-7 states that EG&G, after looking into a mobile trailer or van for certain diagnostic and firing and timing functions, states that there is such a van under construction for the Plowshare program but that to get the full capability envisioned and they don't specifically know wht it its but they would guess that about 120 days lead time would be required to develop such a mobile capability. - ¢ ;