Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building, Area 26, Wahmonie Flats, Cane Spring Road, Mercury

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NEV,12-MERC.V,4A-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Cane Spring Road, Wahmonie Flat, Area 26, Nevada Test Site, Mercury Vicinity, Nye County, Nevada USGS Skull Mountain UTM Coordinates Zone 11 E N Dates of Construction: Engineer: Burns and McDonnell Engineering Company, Kansas City, Missouri Builder: J.A. Tiberti Construction Company, Las Vegas, Nevada

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NEV,12-MERC.V,4A-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Building is significant for its role in the scientific experiments associated with the Pluto program at the Nevada Test Site in the development and testing of a nuclear reactor for a ramjet propulsion system, an important military goal involving the feasibility and applicability of nuclear-propelled low-altitude missiles in the national defense of the United States. It was one of three related facilities and it primarily served for disassembling the reactors after being tested so as to be able to study the components and improve on them. Report Prepared by: Harold Drollinger, Robert Jones, and Colleen M. Beck Desert Research Institute 755 East Flamingo Las Vegas, NV Nancy Goldenberg Carey & Company, Inc., Architects Old Engine Co., No.

2 460 Bush Street San Francisco, CA Date: December Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 2

Contextual Information

The Pluto Disassembly Building facility is in Area 26 of the Nevada Test Site (Figure 1) administered originally by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and later by the Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office (DOE/NV). It is reached by traveling north from the town of Mercury along the Mercury Highway, over the Checkpoint Pass and into Frenchman Flat, turning west at the Cane Spring Road turnoff, passing Cane Spring and through Wahmonie Flat to a turnoff to the north for the historic mining town of Wahmonie and Building All roads are paved. The setting is at the eastern edge of Jackass Flats and the western edge of Wahmonie Flat, two open valleys at the northern extent of the Mohave Desert.

The building is at an elevation of ft m) on an alluvial fan at the south base of Lookout Peak in the Mine Mountain range. Lookout Peak is at an elevation of ft m). Skull Mountain is across the valley to the south and reaches an elevation of almost ft m). The natural ground surface around the building is characterized by mostly sand and gravel with various size cobbles.

Surrounding vegetation is interspersed, typical of a desert setting, and includes creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), shadscale (Atriplex conifertifolia), Mormon tea (Ephedra viridis), blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima), bladder pod (Salazaria mexicana), buckwheat (Eriogonum ratany (Krameria parvifolia), bur-sage {Ambrosia dumosa), winterfat (Ceratoides lanata), Russian thistle (Salsola kali), cheat grass (Bromus rice grass (Oryzopsis hymenoides), and other unidentified grasses.

In the area are kit fox, desert tortoise, western shovelnose snake, the sidewinder snake, speckled rattlesnake, gopher snake, coyote, bobcat, raven, red-tailed hawk, black-tailed jackrabbit, desert and Nuttall's cottontail, long-tailed pocket mouse, kangaroo rat, desert woodrat, white-tailed antelope squirrel, black- throated sparrow, horned lark, Say's phoebe, western kingbird, loggerhead shrike, chuckwalla, side-blotched lizard, and desert horned lizard. Other animals in the region include mountain lion, chukar, Gambel's quail, morning dove, golden eagle, and occasionally, bighorn sheep and antelope.

The nearest natural perennial water source is Cane Spring about 7.7 km miles) to the east; however, drilled wells were the sources of water supply for the modern NTS facilities and the springs were not relied upon for dependable and potable water. The Pluto Disassembly Building facility was originally recorded during a cultural resources reconnaissance for the Reentry Body Impact Fuze Flights (RBIFF) project (Jones et al.

It was considered a recent component of a much larger cultural resource, site Other components of site were a small and diffuse prehistoric lithic artifact scatter, consisting of a few flakes, and the abandoned historic mining town of Wahmonie dating to the late The history of Wahmonie spans only a few years and is typical of the boom-and-bust cycle of the mining industry in the western region of the United States. Prospecting in the Wahmonie area began as early as but the infamous mining Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 3 boom did not occur until more than twenty years later when in February of the mining camp of Wahmonie was organized (McLane Paher It soon grew to a small town with boarding houses, tent stores, and cafes.

The Silver Dollar Saloon and the Northern Club were but two of the enterprises (Long Most of the miners lived in small tents. By March of claims had been staked within five miles of the original strike and the population had grown to and by June, claims had been filed in the district and the population varied between 500 and (McLane George Wingfield, a local mine owner and banker, became interested and purchased a portion of the original claim and incorporated the Wahmonie Mining Company. Soon, however, the strike was apparently not as rich as had first been thought and by early optimism faded and people began leaving Wahmonie. Prospecting in the Wahmonie district continued into the and but few ore deposits were ever discovered.

The Pluto Disassembly Building facility was constructed on a portion of the abandoned townsite. The Pluto complex in Area 26 (originally Area of the NTS consisted of three facilities and included the Control Building and Assembly Area, the Test Area, and Disassembly Building (Figures 2 and 3). The Pluto program was managed by the University of California Radiation Laboratory (UCRL), Livermore, California (now the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) with an objective to develop nuclear-propelled missiles for the Department of Defense. Although having a slightly different mission and being relatively smaller (Jones et al.

Building is similar in construction to the Engine and the Reactor Maintenance and Disassembly buildings in Area 25 employed in the Rover program for the development of nuclear-propelled rockets for the space program (Beck et al. Drollinger et al. A notable feature of these massive multi-room structures is the reinforced concrete walls five to six feet thick surrounding the hot bays where nuclear reactors were disassembled after being tested. Disassembly Building has had limited use since the Pluto program ended in In and the control room of the building was used in a conventional rocket launch program, and at other times, it and the other Pluto facilities have been used in radiological training exercises.

Building has been determined eligible to the National Register of Historic Places through consultation between DOE/NV and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office and is currently slated to be demolished under the Environmental Management Deactivation and Decommissioning Program. O.

Architectural and Engineering Information

Construction of the testing facilities at the NTS in Area 26 for the Pluto project occurred in several phases, beginning with roads and water service in (AEC and shortly thereafter by the first phase of building construction in with the Control Building, the Hot Critical Test Facility (also known as the Hot Box), and the Assembly and Shop Building (AEC Burns and McDonnell Engineering Company of Kansas City, Missouri Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 4 designed the original Pluto facilities and J.A.

Tiberti Construction Company of Las Vegas, Nevada was the primary builder (AEC In new construction at the Pluto facilities included the Disassembly Building (Building and the Test Bunker, as well as feet of pipe for the compressed air tank farm, an air heater and furnace, a railroad spur, and a compressor house. Construction in included another feet of pipe, and in early feet of pipe, an air heating system furnace, and a pound air compressor. Diversified Builders, Inc. and Industrial Contractors, Inc. of Paramount, California were awarded the contract to expand and modify the Pluto facilities.

Norman Engineering Company of Los Angeles was the architect-engineering firm for the new work (AEC The Disassembly Building facility included, besides the main building (Photographs and NV-32-A-1), a fenced compound surrounding the building, a guardhouse (Photograph brock houses (Photographs and miscellaneous equipment (Photographs and a water tower (Photograph and a test car wash stand (Photograph NV-32-E-1). The fenced compound encompasses 1.8 acre hectares). The guardhouse is at the southeast corner of the compound near the main entrance gate. It is typical of the guardhouses found at the other facilities, consisting of a one-story wood frame structure, with a flat roof and deep overhangs, and measuring about m) and 8.5 ft m) high.

Walls consist of horizontal siding at the lower portions, with sliding wood sash windows all around. Two plywood sheds on skids, known as brock houses, stand at the eastern edge of the site. These are one-room, one-story structures. One of the brock houses was used to accommodate the water filtering system. Other features within the compound include a power substation at the southwest corner and pumping equipment at the northeast corner. The wash stand is a 50 ft (15 m) long corrugated metal structure, open on two ends, and straddles the railroad tracks by which the test cars were moved between facilities. It is about 550 ft m) east of the Disassembly Building facility. Building occupies the northwest portion of the compound.

The building is 167 ft m) in length and 143 ft m) in width, with a floor space of ft2 It is of the same general construction consisting mostly of reinforced concrete and masonry as the main buildings at the E-MAD and R-MAD facilities in nearby Area 25. Building is mostly one-story, with irregular massing and a flat roof, with the parts of the building requiring radiation shielding being constructed of solid, reinforced concrete.

The building consists of a number of discrete parts (Figure 4): a Cold Assembly Bay (Room Main Disassembly Bay (Room Hot and Warm Cell (Room Kilo-Curie Hot Cell (Room Hot Storage and Packaging Room (Room Control Room (Room Operations Area (Room Warm and Cold Storage Room (Room a personnel area with toilets, showers, and the Radiation Safety Room (Rooms 112 and a dark room, a Cold Storage Room (Room and offices (Room Railroad tracks for transporting the reactor Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 5 enter the building at both the Main Disassembly Bay and Cold Assembly Bay and extend to the Test Bunker where the reactor was tested. Main entry to the building is on the south elevation (Photograph NV-32-A-2).

The western half of the building, enclosing the Warm and Cold Storage Room, is monolithic concrete. There are no openings in the west half of the elevation, but a metal vent penetrates the center portion of the wall near the top. The eastern half is of concrete masonry units. Openings include the main entry doors, which are two-leaf glazed metal doors accessed by a five-riser flight of stairs, and three aluminum horizontally-sashed projecting windows. Expanded metal lath now covers these windows. The east elevation also features reinforced concrete and masonry unit walls (Photographs NV-32-A-3 and NV-32-A-4). It is dominated by the tall, forward-projecting Hot Storage and Packaging Room mass.

The south end is lower, with concrete masonry unit walls and two aluminum windows similar to those on the south elevation and are also covered by metal lath (see Photograph NV-32-A-1). A chain link enclosed ramp ascends to a glazed metal door accessing this storage room. Three large equipment doors are also present; the most notable of these is near the center of the elevation, accessing the Main Disassembly Bay. This door is a thick concrete assembly with steel pulleys mounted above. A plywood temporary structure, 16 ft m) wide by 60 ft long, abuts the north side of the Hot Storage and Packaging Room mass. Both the north and west elevations are monolithic windowless planes (Photographs NV-32-A-5 to NV- 32-A-8).

Two single-leaf glazed metal doors access the Cold Assembly Bay on the north elevation, while a pair of glazed metal doors access the mechanical equipment room (Room The building interior is of two levels, dominated by the Main Disassembly Bay (Photographs NV-32-A-9 to NV-32-A-12), three small hot bays, including the Hot and Warm Cell (Photograph NV-32-A-13), the Kilo-Curie Hot Cell (Photographs NV-32-A-14 and NV-32-A- and the Hot Storage and Packaging Room (Photograph NV-32-A-16), and the Cold Assembly Bay (Photographs NV-32-A-17 to NV-32-A-21) in the lower level. The hot bays have high ceilings and all feature painted concrete walls and ceilings. Floors in the Main Disassembly Bay are painted concrete, while those in the smaller hot bays are linoleum over a built-up platform.

Major equipment in these spaces, mostly ceiling-mounted, includes one 15-ton crane, three 7 1/2-ton cranes, four 3,000-pound capacity manipulators, and two master-slave manipulators. Hot cell doors are thick hydraulic units made of concrete, with elaborate operating systems featuring internal piping systems, counterweights, and pulleys. The six viewing windows into the hot cells are made of a 4 ft m) thick radiation- shielding glass. Equipment controls for remote handling are mounted around the perimeters of these windows. The lower level also contains a circulation equipment room (Photograph NV-32-A-22). Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No.

NV-32-A Page 6 The main spaces in the upper level of the building are the Control and Operation Rooms (Photographs NV-32-A-23 and NV-32-A-24) next to the hot cells and Main Disassembly Bay, the Warm and Cold Storage Room (Photographs NV-32-A-25 to NV-32-A-27) in the southwest corner of the building, and the Cold Storage Room (Photograph NV-32-A-28) at the southeast corner of the building. The Cold Storage Room also contains extra offices. The control and operation areas (Rooms 105 and are notable for the assortment of era computers, equipment, and viewing windows into the Main Disassembly Bay and hot cells (Photographs NV-32-A-29 to NV-32-A-33). An entrance hallway (Photographs NV-32-A-34 and.

NV-32-A-35), a janitorial room (Photograph NV-32-A-36), and toilet and wash rooms (Photographs NV-32-A-37) are also present. These areas feature vinyl asbestos tile floors, painted concrete or concrete masonry unit walls with vinyl base and a painted wainscot, and suspended acoustical ceilings. A basement, featuring three rooms for equipment and storage (Photographs NV-32-A-38 to NV-32-A-40), extends beneath the southern part of the building and below the upper level. It is accessible by a ramp from the exterior at the southeast corner of the building.

Ie. Historical Information

The concept of nuclear propulsion for rockets and other aircraft was initially discussed in by personnel at both the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL, now the Los Alamos National Laboratory) and the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory (Bussard Bussard and DeLauer Following these discussions, the first serious study dealing with the concept of nuclear propulsion for rockets, aircraft, and missiles, according to Bussard (Bussard Bussard and DeLauer was produced in as a secret document by personnel at the Applied Physics Laboratory, John Hopkins University. This document summarized the contemporary information about nuclear propulsion and the principles and problems for developing such systems.

What was made evident in the document was that little or nothing was known about specific properties of materials in order to build the systems. A second secret document was prepared in by the Aerophysics Laboratory, North American Aviation Corporation, focusing on nuclear ramjets and rockets of different sizes for military purposes (Bussard Bussard and DeLauer In the U.S.

Air Force established the Nuclear Energy for Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee for exploring the possibility of low-altitude nuclear aircraft (Bussard and DeLauer Larson Work on this project continued intermittently until (Bussard The Lexington Project, an ad hoc study group convening in at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the behest of the AEC, determined the least difficult system to develop was the low-altitude nuclear aircraft, followed by the nuclear ramjet for powering missiles, with Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 7 the nuclear rocket being the most difficult. The NEPA project evolved into an expanded Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program when the U.S.

Air Force joined with the AEC to develop the systems, focusing primarily on manned military aircraft (AEC see Larson In the U.S. Navy also became interested and requested a feasibility study for a nuclear-powered seaplane (AEC The first test linking a turbojet engine for aircraft to nuclear power was successfully carried out in during the Heat Transfer Reactor Experiments at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho (AEC Savage The ANP program was terminated in by President Kennedy (AEC with few results ever obtained (Bussard and DeLauer In contrast to the earlier beliefs, it was found that a nuclear-propelled low-altitude aircraft was the most difficult of the three systems to develop, due mostly to size constraints and safety considerations.

In the an article by Bussard who was working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory at the time, on the potentialities of a wide range of missions for nuclear rockets sufficiently influenced the U.S. Air Force to direct, through the AEC, the LASL and UCRL to study the feasibility of linking nuclear power with rockets (AEC Baker 49; Bussard Bussard and DeLauer General Advisory Committee 24; House The great appeal of nuclear propulsion, as opposed to chemical propulsion, was its smaller size and greater velocity to enable bigger pay loads. Consequently, it was considered more efficient and preferable than chemical systems, particularly in the long and complex journeys for exploring the solar system (see Angelo and Buden 1985:ix; Schreiber In the Condor committee of the U.S.

Air Force Scientific Advisory Board recommended that work was to begin on a nuclear-propelled rocket (Baker House In a Rover reactor approach using uranium-loaded graphite fuel was selected as the method to be developed based on the studies by LASL and UCRL (AEC Construction and testing of reactors for rockets was assigned to LASL within the Rover program (AEC Schreiber Also in the task of producing a nuclear reactor for a ramjet engine was assigned to UCRL within the Pluto program, and following U.S. Air Force studies, focused on low- altitude missile application.

This type of application had the advantage of being virtually undetectable by radar, and additionally, did not subject service personnel to the radiation hazards as compared with the manned aircraft (see Merkle Ramjets are the simplest type of air-breathing engine (AEC having a continuous inlet of air at their forward end, and compresses or rams the air taken in during flight. As opposed to rockets, ramjets can only be operated in the atmosphere of the earth because of the need for air and was somewhat ideal for the intended applicability in low-altitude missiles. As the air is heated in the engine, it expands and is ejected at a higher velocity than when it entered. A nuclear reactor heating the air produces a propulsion system feasible for long-range use.

It was considered that one pound of uranium could produce as much heat as about two million Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 8 pounds of jet fuel, and thus, the nuclear ramjet missile would have almost unlimited range over the earth at a very low altitude and at high speed and have a much larger payload capability. In contrast, chemically-fueled ramjet engines have the drawback of requiring tremendous fuel consumption, and therefore, are only useful for a limited range. Furthermore, a heavy fuel load and complex combustion system imposed by chemical fuels also greatly limited the range of the missile. Two nuclear reactors were tested at the NTS as part of the Pluto program.

In Tory II- A, a small, low-power engineering test reactor, demonstrated the program's technical feasibility by successfully performing a series of power runs (AEC The primary objective of these tests was to demonstrate the applicability of linking nuclear power, that is, a nuclear reactor as the basis for propulsion, with a ramjet. Building constructed in was primarily designed to remotely adjust components and completely disassemble the Tory II-A nuclear reactor system for study and enable improvements in the components of the system to be made. After disassembly, fuel repackaging and decontamination activities were conducted in the smaller hot cells of the building. Following the successful test of Tory II-A, facilities were added and modified for the Tory II-C experiments.

In the spring of Tory II-C, a full-scale, missile-sized reactor successfully demonstrated the feasibility of incorporating the ramjet engine for low-altitude supersonic flights (AEC The test on May 12 simulated a flight at ft m) altitude and at Mach 2.8 speed, while a second test on May 20 simulated a flight at sea level also at a speed of Mach This reactor, having more power and capable of a higher temperature than the earlier one, was at the proper scale and configuration for actual flight.

It was still only an intermediate stage, however, toward a more advanced flyable prototype (AEC Eventually, it was determined no or little further advantage was to be gained in developing ballistic missiles powered by nuclear engines when compared with the chemically-propelled missiles already developed and operational, and therefore, effort and money for research and development could be spent more effectively elsewhere (Baker The Pluto program ended in when the Department of Defense decided against a flight test within the program, and consequently, all tests at that time planned for the future were cancelled (AEC Later budget restrictions and changes in national priorities in led to a termination of all space-oriented nuclear propulsion development efforts and the Rover program for nuclear rockets was phased out as well (AEC Koenig In summary, the significant technological advances made during the time of the Pluto and Rover programs proved the feasibility and applicability of nuclear-propelled vehicles in low-altitude and for outer space travel, and overall, the programs can be considered successful scientific achievements for the United States.

Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 9 IV.

Sources

Angelo, Joseph A., Jr. and David Buden Space Nuclear Power. Orbit Book Company, Inc., Malabar, Florida. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Annual Report of the Atomic Energy Commission to the National Security Council. Manuscript on file, Accession No. Coordination and Information Center, Las Vegas, Nevada. Background Information on Los Alamos and Livermore Nuclear Propulsion Projects, and the Static Test Areas being Developed at the Commission's Nevada Test Site. Manuscript on file, Accession No. Coordination and Information Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Annual Report to Congress of the Atomic Energy Commission for United States Government Printing Office, Washington Annual Report to Congress of the Atomic Energy Commission for United States Government Printing Office, Washington Annual Report to Congress of the Atomic Energy Commission for United States Government Printing Office, Washington Annual Report to Congress of the Atomic Energy Commission for United States Government Printing Office, Washington Annual Report to Congress of the Atomic Energy Commission for United States Government Printing Office, Washington Annual Report to Congress: Volume 1 - Operating and Developmental Functions. United States Government Printing Office, Washington Baker, David Spaceflight and Rocketry: A Chronology. Facts On File, Inc., New York.

Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 10 Beck, Colleen M., Nancy G. Goldenberg, Harold Drollinger, Robert Jones, and Diane L. Winslow A Historical Evaluation of the Engine Maintenance Assembly and Disassembly Facility, Area 25, Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada. Cultural Resources Reconnaissance Short Report No. Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, Nevada, Bussard, Robert W. Nuclear Energy for Rocket Propulsion. Report No. ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee. Nuclear Fission Rockets: Problems, Progress and Promise. In Advances in Astronautical Propulsion, edited by C. Casci, pp. Pergamon Press, New York and Editrice Politecnica Tamburini, Milan. Bussard, and DeLauer Fundamentals of Nuclear Flight. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.

Drollinger, Harold, Colleen M. Beck, Diane Winslow, and Nancy Goldenberg Nevada Test Site, Engine Maintenance Assembly and Disassembly Facility. Historic American Engineering Record No. U.S. National Park Service, Washington, Drollinger, Harold, Nancy Goldenberg, and Colleen M. Beck An Historical Evaluation of the R-MAD Building in Area 25 for Planned Activities Associated with the Environmental Management Decontamination and Decommissioning Program, Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada. Cultural Resources Reconnaissance Short Report No. Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, Nevada. General Advisory Committee Minutes of the Fiftieth Meeting of the General Advisory Committee to the United States Atomic Energy Commission, July 16, 17 and 18, Manuscript on file, Accession No.

Coordination and Information Center, Las Vegas, Nevada. House, William C. The Development of Nuclear Rocket Propulsion in the United States. Paper presented to the British Interplanetary Society Advanced Propulsion Symposium, London, England. Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 11 Jones Robert C, Colleen M. Beck, Anne DuBarton, Susan R. Edwards, Nancy Goldenberg, and Joni Carroll A Class III Cultural Resources Reconnaissance of the Proposed Reentry Body Impact Fuze Flights (RBIFF), Area 26, Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada. Cultural Resources Reconnaissance Short Report No. Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, Nevada. Koenig, Daniel R. Experience Gained from the Space Nuclear Rocket Program (Rover). Report No.

LA-10062-H, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. Larson, C.E. Brief History of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Project at ORNL. Manuscript on file, Accession No. Coordination and Information Center, Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office, Las Vegas. Long, Margaret The Shadow of the Arrow. Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho. McLane, Alvin R. The Silent Land: History of Yucca Mountain and the Fortymile Canyon Country, Nye County, Nevada. Manuscript on file, Quaternary Sciences Center, Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada. Merkle, Theodore C. The Nuclear Ramjet Propulsion System. In Advanced Propulsion Techniques, edited by Penner, pp. Pergamon Press, New York. Paher, Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps. Nevada Publications, Las Vegas. Savage, Nuclear Turbojets.

In Advanced Propulsion Techniques, edited by Penner, pp. Pergamon Press, New York. Schreiber, Raemer E. Los Alamos' Project Rover. Nucleonics Nuclear Rockets (Project Rover). In Advanced Propulsion Techniques, edited by Penner, pp. Pergamon Press, New York. Nevada Test Site, Pluto Facility, Disassembly Building HAER No. NV-32-A Page 12

Project Information

This manuscript has been prepared at the request of the Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office in response to the management of cultural resources on the Nevada Test Site. It is based on previous investigations conducted by the Desert Research Institute, reported in Cultural Resources Reconnaissance Short Report No. An Historical Evaluation of Pluto Building Area 26, Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada, and Cultural Resources Reconnaissance Short Report No. A Class III Cultural Resources Reconnaissance of the Proposed Reentry Body Impact Fuze Flights (RBIFF), Area 26, Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada, Project Manager and Co-Principal Investigator for this latest effort in the documentation of the facility was Colleen M.

Beck of the Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, Nevada; Harold Drollinger of the Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, was the second Principal Investigator; Nancy Goldenberg of Carey & Company, Inc. Architects, San Francisco, California was the historic architect; and the photographer was Richard Smith of Bechtel Nevada, Las Vegas.