Fire in the Sky

With a brilliant white flash that turned night into day over millions of square miles of the Pacific, the U.S. exploded its highest nuclear test some 260 miles above the earth. It was the first invasion of the fringes of outer space by a thermonuclear device, and what it proved militarily for the security of the U.S. was a carefully kept secret. But the one-megaton bomb that arched over tiny Johnston Island on a three-stage Delta rocket caused the most dazzling--and awesome--display of man's power ever seen.

The test was the most publicized, most debated and most postponed of the U.S. current test series. It had been called off seven times because of weather. Twice the booster rocket had roared off its pad with a great bomb in its nose, only to be destroyed deliberately because of malfunction. But now the countdown had begun again, and Hawaiian radio stations cut regular programs off the air to broadcast its final minutes. Residents hurried to the beaches, and on Diamond Head cars picked out vantage observation posts. Officials even opened the gates at Punchbowl Cemetery to allow crowds to view the shot from its famous concrete observation pad.

Awe & Fear. As the countdown continued on the radio, the time dragged; a quarter-moon showed intermittently in the cloud-patched sky. At last the countdown dropped to seconds: ten, nine, eight . . . Finally, at exactly 11 p.m., the bomb exploded. The sky over Hawaii flared dazzling white, seemingly even brighter than noonday. The light turned pale lime green, then a delicate pink that darkened swiftly to a hideous meaty red. After seven minutes, the glow was gone, leaving the blue-black Pacific night. But when the moon next showed through the clouds, it was tinted an unnatural yellow.

The great show went on far from Hawaii. It splashed New Zealand with incandescent color, spanned the Pacific with artificial auroras, and reddened the sky almost as far away as Antarctica. Brilliant, many-colored lights changed and danced over Samoa, flashed across remote Campbell Island 5,600 miles from Johnston Island. On the northern side of the magnetic equator, where the same atmospheric force lines dive into the atmosphere, parts of Alaska saw the northern version of New Zealand's aurora. The explosion itself was silent to human ears, but its power caused the earth's atmosphere and magnetic field to vibrate, jangling scientific instruments all around the world.

Most of those who saw the massive fireworks display were stunned into awe or fear by its magnificence. Samoan natives insisted that the moon had burst, and a Bible-reading lady in New Zealand called a newspaper office to ask calmly if the end of the world had begun. Watchers on the beach at Hawaii gasped in surprise at the unexpected daylight, and the pilot of a Canadian Pacific airliner flying to Sydney turned his plane about to give his passengers a breathtaking view of the eerie sight. "Everybody has seen fireballs in pictures." said an amazed Hawaiian, "but no one has ever seen the sky on fire before."

No Fallout. Russia and Red China predictably accused the U.S. of committing a crime against mankind, but international reaction to the blast was generally calm. U.S. assurances that the explosion would not create hazardous fallout or do any kind of permanent damage seemed to have allayed most fears. Most of the scientists who had opposed the test on the ground that it might do long-lasting damage to the earth's upper atmosphere and the Van Allen radiation belt were reserving judgment. Scientists in New Zealand, the country most affected by the blast, treated it as an interesting scientific experiment--and a pleasure to observe.

The high-altitude shot was billed by the Atomic Energy Commission as an experiment to discover what effect a powerful nuclear explosion above the atmosphere would have on radio communications. But its purpose was much broader and more important to the U.S. than that. The blast was principally designed to help develop a defense against large intercontinental missiles--and most of the observations made by thousands of official instruments are still military secrets. In fact, nonofficial observers report that radio communication was not blacked out for as long as expected. Tokyo's communications with the U.S. were back in working order in 40 minutes. Australia talked with Hawaii and San Francisco 20 minutes after the blast.

Most of the observations have not yet been interpreted, but U.S. scientists are cherishing every scrap of data. Eventually they hope to piece it all together to determine what the spectacular blast meant for the security of the U.S. and the gains and perils of probing into space with man's most powerful weapon.

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