For environmental monitoring, Project Grab Bag was an air sampling program conducted in the United States in the stratosphere of above-ground nuclear weapons testing in the Soviet Union.
The objective of the Grab Bag program was to develop an unmanned high-altitude balloon-borne system that would collect air samples at an altitude of typically and return them to earth for analyses. The air samples were analyzed for the presence of specific isotopes of krypton and xenon, unambiguous markers of fission reactions. These short-lived isotopes are created in the fission process and carried high into the atmosphere by the fireball, where they will remain for some days. The air sampling system was developed by the Balloons and Meteorological Systems group at General Mills, Inc. in Minneapolis, Minnesota, using large balloons fabricated of thin polyethylene film. The initial test of the sampling system collected an important air sample over the United States on August 14, 1953, at an altitude of . This sample contained debris from a nuclear weapon test in the USSR, designated Joe-4, that was conducted two days earlier, on August 12, 1953, at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. This was the first test of a thermonuclear weapon by the USSR and was initiated by a 40-kiloton uranium-235 bomb and produced a total yield of 400 kilotons.
Background The first nuclear detonation was an above-ground test, "Trinity", conducted in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. It represented an important accomplishment of the Manhattan Project that had been initiated at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1943.Richard Rhodes. The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Simon and Schuster, 1986) In less than two months following this test, nuclear weapons assembled at Los Alamos were used in the Pacific War against Japan. Hiroshima was devastated on August 6, 1945, with a uranium-235 gun device with a fission product yield of about 15 kilotons. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, a plutonium-239 implosion device with a yield of about 22 kilotons was detonated over Nagasaki. These events significantly influenced the conclusion of World War II as the incredibly destructive power of these new weapons became apparent. The Manhattan Project brought together scientists from the US and Britain to collaborate on this nuclear weapons development program. Los Alamos was the epicenter of this activity, and, in spite of high-level security, it was realized in 1948 that security of the program had been breached. Klaus Fuchs, a British theoretical physicist intimately involved in some of the most sensitive aspects of the program, had supplied the USSR with key information via outside contacts beginning in 1945. This information substantially advanced the Soviet effort in developing nuclear weapons. As the US became aware of the loss of key ideas and design concepts, it was important to reassess the state of the Soviet program in fission devices, and to monitor extensions of their program to fusion devices. One concern was the extent of progress made by the Soviets in producing fissionable material through reactor operations. Of even greater importance was the state of development of fission–fusion devices capable of orders of magnitude greater destructive power than the fission devices used against Japan.
The detection of reactor operations and above-ground nuclear weapon tests can be carried out in various ways. One approach used since the early 1950s has been the analyses of air samples collected at ground and low-level altitudes for the presence of particular radioactive nuclides. This technique is still in use, and there are a number of ground-based, radionuclide detectors for airborne debris in continuous operation in various parts of the world.Hui Zhang. Off-Site Air Sampling Analysis and North Korean Nuclear Test in: Institute of Nuclear Material Management. (Conference Proceedings, July 2007) An advantage of collecting air samples in the stratosphere is that powerful above-ground nuclear explosions carry bomb debris to elevated altitudes, where it is broadly distributed by winds aloft. The collection and analyses of this debris can therefore provide direct and timely information about a particular test. This article briefly describes the successful effort to develop and implement a program of gathering air samples using high-altitude balloon systems that were used from 1953 until late in 1956. The high-altitude balloon program that collected these samples was known as Project Grab Bag.
The Balloon and Meteorological Systems Group of General Mills, Inc. (GMI) had developed, along with other organizations, constant-level balloon systems capable of reliably carrying instruments and other equipment high into the stratosphere for sustained periods.R. L. Schwoebel, Strato-Lab Development, Final Report, May 1955-November 1956, contract NONR 1589(06)University of Minnesota, Research and Development in the Field of High-Altitude Balloons, December 1952, Progress Report No 2. (378 pages: balloon design, launching, balloon shape, natural shape, duct appendix, telemetering systems)US Navy Skyhook Program, Cold War Balloon Flights 1945-1965, Greg Gabel, In the Public Domain http://www.vectorsite.net/avbloon_3.htmlB. D. Gildenberg. The Cold War’s Classified Skyhook Program: A Participant’s Revelations. The Skeptical Inquirer. 28/3 May/June 2004 http://www.csicop.org/si/show/cold_warrsquos_classified_skyhook_program These systems were ideal platforms on which to conduct experiments related to the observation of winds aloft, cosmic ray studies, and a variety of other investigations. Early in 1953 the eventual sponsors of the Grab Bag program conveyed to the GMI team under the direction of Harold E. Froehlich, principal engineer of the Balloons and Meteorological Systems Group, that high-altitude air samples containing debris from USSR above-ground nuclear weapon tests would be important in monitoring progress in their nuclear weapons program. The sponsors did not discuss specific kinds of debris or isotopes that were of interest. Sizable air samples obtained at high altitude, for example , were judged to be desirable, that is, samples of the order of at standard temperature and pressure conditions. This meant that samples of approximately would need to be collected at altitude. The sponsors also conveyed a sense of urgency in developing the capability to collect such samples. An important weapon test was expected to take place at the USSR test range in the latter part of the summer of 1953, in about six months. They also disclosed that two other US air sampling efforts were being developed and outlined those approaches using special high-altitude aircraft and sounding rockets. These approaches had limits in terms of the effective size of the air sample, and the balloon program offered the potential of being able to gather comparatively large air samples. The Grab Bag team began to develop the concept of suspending an uninflated envelope beneath a large helium-filled balloon, and carrying the envelope to high altitude and filling it with ambient air. An autopilot would then initiate the descent of the entire system. When the system had descended to about the air sample would be transferred from the envelope into an armored vessel that could withstand a variety of landing situations and protect the air sample from loss at the point of recovery. The balloon system would include an electronic controller and autopilot to carry out this sequence of events, and to return the entire system back to ground in a controlled descent. Simplified sketches of the grab bag system are illustrated in the three primary stages of flight in Figures 1-3: ascent of the system to the sampling altitude (Figure 1), collection of the air sample at high altitude (Figure 2), and recovery of the sample and descent of the system (Figure 3).
As shown schematically in Figure 1, a high-speed blower, the associated power supply and electronic control package was suspended from the base of the sample balloon, at the lowest point in the load train (#57). The base of the sample balloon was modified to take a cylindrical fitting (#40) that was fitted with the blower. The blower would operate at the ceiling altitude of for of the order of two hours to fill the sample balloon with about of air. The inflated sample balloon is illustrated in Figure 2 at the conclusion of the sampling cycle. At this point, an autopilot would release a predetermined amount of helium from the lifting balloon and initiate the descent of the entire system at a rate of about 400 feet per minute. As the system descended to about , an axial fan (#29) located at the top of the sample envelope would be activated to transfer the air sample into a flexible armored vessel (#27) located just above the sample balloon and below the lifting balloon and suspended parachute (#23). The transfer of the sample required a short period of time and then a valve at the base of the armored vessel (#29) was sealed. The system continued to descend and when the control unit contacted ground, explosive devices severed the connection between the lifting balloon and the parachute and this led to a collapse of the lifting balloon and conclusion of the flight. The Grab Bag concept resulted in a complex load train with electrical cables running along the entire length of the system, about in length. Launching of the system was a challenge to safely get this extended system off the ground, and to do so without damaging the lifting balloon, the sample envelope, electrical cables for the blowers, the autopilot and associated helium valve, antenna lines and other elements of the system.
The electronic control unit (#57) transmitted the altitude and key steps in the flight sequence, including: The initiation of a high-altitude blower for a programmable period (typically 90 minutes) to fill the sample envelope with ambient air. The initiation of the axial fan #25 (to transfer the air sample from the sample balloon into the armored vessel at an altitude of 10,000 feet). The initiation of an autopilot function #116 (to valve helium from the lifting balloon). The rate of descent of the system (typically 1000 to 2000 feet per minute). The arming of the explosive cut down devices #57 (to rapidly deflate the lifting balloon when the lowest part of the system contacted the ground).