U.S. Prepares For New High Test

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29872, 12 July 1962, Page 11

U.S. Prepares For New High Test

(A'Z. Press Assn.—Copyright)

HONOLULU, July 11.

The United States exploded an air-dropped nuclear device near Christmas Island yesterday, while technicians at Johnston Island began preparations to fire another nuclear bomb possibly 500 miles into space.

The latest blast, the twentysixth in the current Pacific test series, came as scientists throughout the world studied the effects of Sunday night’s spectacular explosion at Johnston Island. Scientists in Washington said the explosion, at an altitude of 200 to 400 miles, struck a blow at the earth’s magnetic field comparable to the buffeting it sometimes receives from disturbances on the sun, United Press International report. Observatories at Fredricksburg, Virginia, and Tucson, Arizona, reported sharp changes in the strength and direction of the magnetic field immediately after the explosion. The Atomic Energy Commission in Washington said the device dropped from an aircraft near British-owned Christmas Island yesterday had a power of from 20,000 tons of T.N.T. to a megatonequal to 1,000,000 tons.

The blast was smaller than Sunday night’s explosion over Johnston Island, which lighted the sky in a blaze of colours across vast reaches of the Pacific.

For the first time in the history of United States nuclear testing, distortions of the earth’s magnetic field were reported in continental United States coincident with the Johnston Island test. Recordings were made by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and a Washington scientist said ‘‘this appears to have been the shot heard round the world.” Radio Puzzle But observers in Honolulu were puzzled as to why the blast did not have as severe effects on communications as predicted. Scientists had expected communications blackouts of

from 16 to 32 hours. Actually the greatest disruption was about 20 minutes between the United States and Australia.

The shot had been planned to test the possibility of using a high-altitude nuclear explosion as an electronic screen against enemy missiles.

Pending official explanation, it was not certain whether the test could be classified either as a success or failure from the communications viewpoint. A group of members of Parliament yesterday asked the British Government to urge the United States to call off its current nuclear test series immediately.