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Kirtland Air Force Base

Home of the Air Force Special Weapons Center

To support the above-ground nuclear testing at the Nevada Proving Grounds, the Air Force Special Weapons Center also received management jurisdiction for Indiana Springs Air Force Base in July 1952. Indiana Springs was adjacent to the test site in Nevada. The Special Weapons Center maintained control of Indiana Springs into 19611.1

Both the Development and Research Directorates of the Air Force Special Weapons Center took on vital roles as the nuclear weapons mission unfolded during the first half of the 1950s. Working with the Wright Air Development Center at Wright-Patterson, the Development Directorate sustained responsibility for a variety of nuclear weapons projects, including Brass Ring (1952), Caucasian (1952-1954), Cornrose (1953), Rocky Mountain (1953), Heavenbound (1953), and Barroom (alternately, Cauterize) (1953-1954).

Caucasian was a special munitions package that required some type of unmanned delivery. Brass Ring was a delivery scenario for Caucasian that evaluated the feasibility of firing the Navaho guided missile (with a Caucasian warhead) from an unmanned B-47, or from a B-47 flown manually but abandoned by its crew at a certain point in the mission. Cornrose analyzed the adaptation of nuclear weapons for destruction of massive dams and harbor infrastructure. Rocky Mountain addressed cryogenics (and used the -200 degrees Centigrade environmental test chamber in Building 1001), while Heavenbound looked at the possibilities of high-altitude detonation of nuclear weapons for air defense (which would lead to the MB-1 Genie). For Heavenbound, the AEC, the Sandia and Los Alamos laboratories, ADC, and ARDC’s Cambridge Research Center at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts were each strongly interested in the study results. During 1954, the Air Force Special Weapons Center supported the construction of facilities at Kirtland exclusively for Project Cauterize. The Research Directorate of the Special Weapons Center began a weapons data indexing project as of 1953. The Special Weapons Center continued to maintain a technical library “containing all data pertaining to the participation of the Army Air Force and the United States Air Force in the atomic energy program.”

References

  1. Weitze, K. J. (2003). Keeping the Edge: Air Force Materiel Command Cold War Context (1945-1991)—Volume II: Installations and Facilities (H-15 30002238; p. 616). https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA640508.pdf
    1. p.314 (PDF Page)