This facility is called the Nuclear Rocket Development Site and is
located on Jackass Flats on the Nevada Test Site. So yes, there was
probably some pre-existing contamination in the area from other
activities (for example, pre-treaty atmospheric testing). I suspect
the level of contamination was probably not enough to create a
restricted area (restricted for the purposes of radiation protection .
.. . other reasons notwithstanding). I was at the facility in 1980 when
it was being used as a very large prop for a training scenario in the
Radiological Emergency Response Operations (RERO) course. Now days,
the class in taught somewhere in the east, apparently without the use
of such a cool setting.

A colleague of mine worked there on KIWI and tells me that, in a
nutshell, they were attempting to "model" the way one of these things
would come apart if it were involved in a launch or LEO accident. The
data was to be used in assessing the radiological consequences of a
"bad day". This was a long time before computer modeling was
around.


blue skies

John