MIRAGE GOLD and its aftermath solidified the transfer of power over NEST from the Nevada Operations Office to Department of Energy headquarters. One manifestation of that shift in power was the elimination of the NEST Executive Planning Board. Consisting of senior NEST representatives from the Nevada Operations Office, the laboratories, and key contractors, the planning board had decided NEST policy and supervised its operations.1
The individual who became the single most important person in determining how NEST operated was the head of the Energy Department’s Office of Emergency Response, Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty. Gordon-Hagerty had joined the Energy Department in 1992, after a stint on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where she had been a technical advisor to the minority staff. Prior to her move to Washington, she had worked at Livermore, following her acquisition of an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master’s in health physics, both from the University of Michigan.2
By 1993 Gordon-Hagerty became the public face of NEST, which was somewhat ironic since she would subsequently tell one writer that she “was always aware of my surroundings because it’s conceivable that I might be a target.” And in 1993, when NBC wanted to do an “Insider’s Report” on the organization, she was “very reticent,” according to NBC producer Robert Windrem. One problem was that she believed the team was not ready, that prior to her arrival “the team had been a mess” and was living off its press clippings. But then she realized, Windrem recalls, that a television segment offered an opportunity to galvanize the team.3
He also recalls that when he and the NBC crew arrived in Las Vegas in August 1993, “we were stunned at the level of cooperation . . . Not only did we get a complete dog and pony show, with the latest technology laid out in the NEST hangar, we got up close looks at the choppers, interviews with key players, and a raft of video. They also let us go out on two missions with them.”4 And when NBC Nightly News filmed its story on NEST, Gordon-Hagerty was featured in an interview. She told her interviewer that NEST preferred to work in a low-profile manner, “so that we don’t . . . unduly scare the general public. And we certainly don’t want to give away our presence to the terrorists . . . We will search . . . using vans, that look just like . . . regular side panel vans that anyone else would have in a local area.”5
She also reported, “We have briefcases and backpacks that look like anyone’s briefcase that they’d be carrying to work. And inside that—inside that briefcase is a detector that can look for the radiation that’s emanating from the nuclear device.” Asked how the people who carry such briefcases look, she went on to explain, “They certainly are dressed like you and I . . . they don’t unduly startle the public or make their presence known.”6
In a 1995 Insight on the News article titled “Your Life May Depend on the Woman from NEST,” reporter Anthony L. Kimery wrote, “In the event that anti-American terrorists should obtain such a weapon, there’s only one person to call. And it’s not the Man from U.N.C.L.E. nor James Bond. It’s the woman from NEST . . . America’s first line of defense against nuclear terrorism.” The woman he was referring to, “the beautiful blonde who is chief of an agency so secret that even its name has been classified,” was Gordon-Hagerty—even though, strictly speaking, she was not a member of NEST.7
She told Kimery that she considered her job to be “the most important in the country.” It was a job Gordon-Hagerty would hold until 1998, when she joined the National Security Council staff as director of weapons of mass destruction preparedness, a position created when President Bill Clinton signed a presidential decision directive that May, “Protection Against Unconventional Threats to the Homeland and Americans Overseas.” She would hold that job for another five years, till she left in 2003 to become executive vice president and chief operating officer of the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. In subsequent years she would be named to Fortune magazine’s list of most powerful women.8
But it was the power she possessed over NEST before she left government, particularly her tenure in the Department of Energy, that had distressed some NEST veterans, who were, undoubtedly, glad to see her depart. It is also probable that a NEST veteran such as William Nelson spoke for others when he asserted, and not in praise, that Gordon-Hagerty “killed [NEST] in the form it was” and eliminated the oversight role of the Nevada Operations Office for NEST. Similarly, William Chambers believes she “began to think like the military” when she evaluated an exercise such as Mirage Gold, and he “wouldn’t be surprised if some of the words [of the Beers memo] weren’t hers.”9
A very different view of Gordon-Hagerty comes from NEST veteran Robert Kelley, now on the staff of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Kelley credits her with understanding that NEST would have to operate in an environment in which communicated threats by extortionists were a thing of the past, and the new era involved the perpetual threat of nuclear attacks by terrorists, attacks that were likely to come without warning. She was “strong enough to resist” the opposition that she faced and willing to “make enemies in the process.”10
Her boss, Charles Beers, also praised her performance, calling it “very positive” and crediting her with “vision.” In addition, he said, she enabled NEST to get attention, to be recognized, among the multitude of federal agencies that “would like to get their name in lights.”11
Of course, much did not change. The controlling guidance for the FBI and NEST continued to reside in several key documents. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 made the malevolent use or threatened use of special nuclear material a felony and assigned the FBI responsibility to investigate such threats. President Ronald Reagan also signed, in November 1988, Executive Order 12656, “Assignment of Emergency Preparedness Responsibilities,” updating an earlier executive order. The order directed the Department of Energy, in consultation with the secretaries of state and defense, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to “develop plans and capabilities for identification, analysis, damage assessment, and mitigation of hazards from nuclear weapons, materials, and devices.”12
In January 1986, Reagan signed a national security decision directive, “The National Program for Combatting Terrorism.” The nine-page, single-spaced directive both set forth U.S. policy on terrorism—“firm opposition to terrorism in all its forms whether it is domestic terrorism perpetrated within U.S. territory, or international terrorism conducted inside or outside U.S. territory by foreign nationals or groups”—and assigned responsibilities across the government for carrying out the program.13
In June 1995, it was Bill Clinton’s turn to sign a secret presidential directive outlining U.S. policy on counterterrorism, replacing Reagan’s directive. The document reaffirmed the State Department’s responsibility for managing the U.S. response to overseas terrorist incidents and the FBI’s designation as lead agency in responding to domestic threats. It informed its select audience that “the United States shall give the highest priority to developing effective capabilities to detect, prevent, defeat and manage the consequences of nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) materials or weapons use by terrorists.” The remainder of the directive, with regard to the U.S. response to weapons of mass destruction incidents, was deleted before its public release.14
But an unclassified Energy Department directive, issued in September 1991, “Nuclear Emergency Search Team,” was still in force—and would remain so for more than another decade. The directive specified that the first request for NEST’s services would be handled by the department’s Emergency Operations Center in Germantown, Maryland. The center would then notify the duty officer for the deputy assistant secretary for military application (DP-20), the Nevada Operations Office, and the department’s Office of Threat Assessment. The deputy assistant secretary was to then, if it was deemed necessary, activate an Operational Emergency Management Team while the Nevada field office was to mobilize and deploy the appropriate NEST personnel. Full deployment of NEST assets would require the approval of the deputy assistant secretary.15
The order also laid out the responsibilities and authorities of individuals from the secretary of energy down to contracting officers, with most of the key responsibilities for managing and operating NEST belonging to the deputy assistant secretary (and the Office of Emergency Response below him) and the Nevada Operations Office. In addition, the Office of Threat Assessment was given several jobs related to NEST: funding and operating the Communicated Threat Credibility Assessment Program at Livermore, participating in the Special Technologies Program research efforts designed to satisfy NEST requirements, and serving as liaison with the Intelligence Community in obtaining intelligence to support NEST operations. The director of the Albuquerque Operations Office was to ensure that assets belonging to the department’s Accident Response Group (ARG) would be available to NEST if needed.16
The order included guidance to the Department of Defense, directed to the secretaries of the three largest military services—Army, Navy, and Air Force. They were to provide trained explosive ordnance disposal personnel for responding to Improvised Nuclear Device incidents in the continental United States. Each was to guarantee that there were service personnel who could respond to IND threats on services facilities, with the Navy also responsible for threats to Marine installations and “other areas as directed” by the president and secretary of defense.17
If NEST did deploy, a senior Energy Department official, normally the manager of the Nevada Operations Office, would be appointed as the Energy Senior Official (ESO) and assigned responsibility for the NEST response to the event. To help him carry out his job, he could turn to another piece of paper, actually several hundred pieces of paper—the two-hundred-page NEST Energy Senior Official’s Reference Manual. The manual, printed in 1993 but still in force today, describes the various authorities under which NEST operates, interagency agreements, NEST operations policy, NEST response, predeployment considerations, on-scene resources and actions (including search, access, diagnostics, and health physics), support resources, legal and public affairs, security, and standard operating procedures.18
The basic mission of the NEST program, in contrast to the expected targets, had also not changed, at least not “appreciably” since 1974, according to the NEST assessment team. The primary mission, the team wrote, was “to assist the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the conduct, direction, and coordination of search and recovery operations for nuclear materials, weapons, or devices; to assist in the identification of an Improvised Nuclear Device (IND), or a Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD), and to render advice on radiation and damage probabilities in the event of a detonation of such a device.”19
The mission had, however, been expanded in two ways. NEST was to support the FBI and the Defense Department when dealing with a Sophisticated Improvised Explosive Device, the consequence of the episode at Harvey’s Resort Hotel. In addition, it was to provide the same level of technical support to the State Department as it did to the FBI, for incidents outside the United States.20
Carrying out the mission still required resources spread across the country. The center of decision making concerning NEST was in the Washington area: the Department of Energy Office of Energy Response and the NEST-East contingent at Andrews Air Force Base, with about fifty people, two helicopters, and one fixed-wing aircraft. The NEST program manager continued to reside at the Nevada Operations Office. Out at Nellis Air Force Base, also in Nevada, was the NEST program headquarters—still the Remote Sensing Laboratory, one tenant among many on the 11,300-acre base, which was home to assorted fighter wings and training centers. The laboratory was the repository of instruments—the attache cases packed with nuclear detection equipment, the detection and analysis equipment and the vans that transported it, as well as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft that also carried detection and analysis equipment. In addition, it housed research testing and fabrication laboratories and shops.21
Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia labs remained prime contributors of personnel. In addition, Livermore continued to host the Communicated Threat Credibility Assessment Program, staffed by the behavioral scientists, physicists, and other technical personnel who would evaluate three aspects of any threat: behavioral, technical, and operational. They would provide the results of their assessment to the FBI, indicating the credibility of the threat and including as much information as available that would allow law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend the threateners. Because of their work, about 90 percent of the nuclear threats from 1970 to 1995 did not require a NEST deployment.22
Contractors who could be counted on to provide members to the NEST team were EG&G (specifically, its Energy Measurements unit); Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Corporation (REECo), an EG&G subsidiary that was responsible for operation, maintenance, and support work at the Nevada Test Site; and Raytheon Services of Nevada, which also provided support to the Nevada Test Site (and prepared the NEST Energy Senior Official’s Reference Manual).23
The personnel from those organizations who were at NEST’s call had a multitude of specialties. They were atmospheric physicists, chemists, communication specialists, data analysts, engineers, health physicists, infrared physicists, logistic experts, management personnel, mathematicians, nuclear physicists, photographers, physicians, public information specialists, flight crews, and tracking and reentry analysts.24
If NEST personnel were to deploy, the ESO would select a senior scientific advisor (SSA) from one of the three nuclear weapons design laboratories. In some cases, a small advance party would be dispatched to the scene of the incident to work with the local authorities and to prepare for a full NEST deployment. Feedback from the advance party would determine the size and composition of the main party to be sent to the incident scene. If no time were available for an advance party, portions of NEST teams would depart as soon as possible.25 In that case, a maximum of up to forty-five people would be expected to resolve the incident, but NEST could deploy a force of four hundred.26
Other organizations could also be involved in NEST deployments. The FBI continued to be the lead agency for domestic terrorist threats, with NEST providing support, whereas the Department of State remained the lead agency for overseas nuclear threats. If force were needed to subdue those threatening nuclear destruction, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, the Army’s Delta Force, or the Navy’s Seal Team 6 could be called on. Meanwhile, after the bomb is secured, NEST personnel would be advising explosive ordnance disposal personnel from the Army Forces Command 52nd Ordnance Group and from the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division on how to neutralize the bomb before it detonates. EOD teams would also help counter booby traps, to allow NEST diagnostic personnel access to the possible nuclear or radiological device.27
In the mid-1990s, it could be said that people comprised the foundation on which NEST was built. Paper, in the forms of presidential and departmental directives, as well as manuals, provided the authority and guidelines for NEST operations. But a vital element of NEST’s capabilities and operations was the multitude of machines available. They allowed NEST personnel to travel halfway across the world if necessary, search for nuclear devices or dirty bombs, disable them, and contain the effects of their work.
To move tons of equipment, along with personnel, NEST relied on Air Force C-141 Starlifters, which could virtually pull up to the front door of the Remote Sensing Laboratory, or at least land on the nearby runway. While not as large or as spacious as the C-5 Galaxy, which stands 65 feet tall and is 247 feet long, the C-141 has the capability of transporting substantial combinations of men and equipment in addition to its crew of six. The C-141, which first began operations in 1964, is 39 feet high and 168 feet long and has a wingspan of 160 feet. As long as the plane and its human and mechanical cargo weigh less than 323,101 pounds, it can get off the ground and travel up to 2,500 miles. In the air it can reach an altitude of 41,000 feet and fly at 500 miles per hour.28
Aside from having the space and power to transport a large volume of men and equipment, the C-141 has a number of features that make it more than a plane with a lot of available space. Its “material handling system” allows for the off-loading of 68,000 pounds of cargo, as well as refueling and reloading, in less than an hour. In addition, its cargo compartment can be modified to accommodate about thirty different missions and can hold two hundred people. Rollers in the aircraft’s floor permit “quick and easy” pallet loading, according to one account. When the rollers are not needed, they can be turned over, leaving a flat surface for loading vehicles.29
Among the smallest items likely to be loaded on the Starlifter were handheld detector systems, which were maintained in the NEST inventory to meet various needs and blend in during covert searches. Each was equipped with electronics for the suppression of background radiation, which greatly enhanced the ability of the system to detect a small source. These systems were also capable of providing a signal only to the operator, using an earphone.30
One of the handheld items would look like an ordinary attache case. But rather than being filled with the books, documents, and electronic devices a businessman or professor might carry, the case would be packed with nuclear detection equipment, processing equipment, and a means of sending a signal to the person carrying it.
Such an attache case might be a smaller version of the aluminum neutron detector suitcase developed by Carl Henry and his colleagues in the 1970s, or its successors. The dimension of Henry’s suitcase was approximately eighteen inches high, twenty-six inches long, and twelve inches deep. When packed with equipment, it weighed seventy pounds. That weight was from the detectors, amplifiers, discriminators, power supplies, batteries, battery charger, and detection logic circuitry packed into the case.31
The neutron detectors occupied the outer section of Henry’s suitcase, which was designed to be carried in a vehicle in normal traffic, when the radiation source being sought was expected to be enclosed and located at a distance. An alarm in the suitcase would emit an audible signal if the data collected by the detectors, after processing, reached the “trip level.” A three-position switch on the control panel gave a NEST member the option of resetting the alarm at the end of a sampling run, inhibiting the alarm, or leaving the alarm ready to go off until it was reset.32
Occupying more space on the C-141 would be NEST’s large, sensitive detectors, which could be mounted in rented vans and used for area sweeps along streets and roads. Of course, the C-141 could also accommodate NEST-owned vans already loaded with detection and processing equipment. If the source of radiation were an automobile or a building near the street, the detector would be able to get a positive signal even while the van is moving.33
There was also room on the Starlifter for some of NEST’s aerial detection equipment—its helicopters. The BO-105 is a lightweight twin-engine military helicopter produced in Germany. About ten feet tall and eight feet wide, with a twenty-nine-foot-long fuselage, it has a range of between 344 and 596 miles, depending on whether it carries auxiliary fuel. It can cruise at 127 miles per hour and can reach a maximum speed of 150 miles per hour.34
In addition, NEST had access to Hughes H-500 helicopters, which weigh a maximum of 2,550 pounds and can fly at 130 knots. The radiation detection capabilities of both the BO-105 and the H-500 were demonstrated during radiological surveys over Areas 18 and 20 of the Nevada Test Site during October and November 1980, during which they detected the presence of cesium-137 and cobalt-60.35
NEST has several varieties of aircraft that fly themselves, with the aid of a pilot, to work. The King Air B-200, almost forty-four feet long and fifteen feet high, with a wingspan of fifty-four feet, six inches, can be employed as an executive jet. With 8,233 pounds as its basic takeoff weight, it can transport about 4,250 pounds of equipment and personnel. It can seat between seven and fifteen people, in addition to the pilot, and fly at an altitude of 35,000 feet and up to 333 miles per hour when it is in its high-speed cruise mode.36
The Citation II, produced by Cessna, is a twin-engine jet aircraft, just over forty-seven feet long. In its standard configuration it includes space for two pilots, two to four equipment operators, and a scientific equipment package. It can reach an altitude of 43,000 feet, cruise at 350 knots (403 miles per hour), and carry up to 6,800 pounds of fuel, personnel, and cargo.37
Then there is the Convair 580T, used in Operation Morning Light. The first Convair 580 flew in January 1960, and more than a hundred have been produced. Each was almost eighty-two feet long, stood just over twenty-nine feet high, and had a wingspan a few inches more than 105 feet. It could reach an altitude of 25,000 feet and had a normal cruising speed of 325 miles per hour. Its maximum takeoff weight was over 58,000 pounds. The aircraft has been employed on a variety of civilian and military missions, carrying packages or passengers, and performing Air Force and Navy missions for both the United States and Canada. NEST’s single Convair 580T carries infrared radiation detection equipment.38
Once the radiation detection systems carried on the Starlifter, or on any of the other planes that made up NEST’s air force, discovered a radiation source judged to be a possible improvised device or dirty bomb, then other equipment delivered by the C-141 would come into use. Crucial to deciding what to do about a nuclear device or dirty bomb is the equipment that reveals the details about the bomb’s construction, and its physics package. One type of diagnostic equipment is passive. It makes use of the radiation emanating from the material—X-rays, alpha rays, gamma rays, neutrons—to gather data from the device. Other equipment is active. It irradiates the device, looking for specific feedback that provides information on the nuclear and conventional explosive material it contains.39
Both X-ray and eavesdropping equipment, such as that used during the incident at Harvey’s Resort Hotel, can help evaluate the internal structure of the device, including its fuzing and firing mechanisms. The X-rays from a diagnostic tool such as the Portac can disclose the status of a weapon’s high explosives, which, if cracked, require stabilization with injections of a vulcanizing rubber before the weapon is moved.40
For many years, including the mid-1990s, NEST’s equipment also included the Automated Tether-Operated Manipulator (ATOM), a robot with wheels and a remote-control arm. A long umbilical cord permitted ATOM to be manipulated from three miles away. The feed from stereo video cameras allowed the operator to view the area in front of the robot, while a third camera would provide a close-up of the arm’s gripping mechanism.41
A Starlifter might also bring to a NEST deployment site a variety of equipment used in disabling a bomb. Of course, which particular type of equipment would heavily depend on what NEST’s diagnostics revealed about the bomb’s construction and physics package.42
If NEST personnel wanted to slice into a suspected bomb, they could employ a high-speed liquid abrasive cutter, a remotely operated instrument that uses high-pressure water and an abrasive medium to do the job. The cutter represents an alternative to a metallic saw whose sparks might set off a detonation. Or the cutter might be used to gain access to the bomb, as the Accident Response Group did in a 2007 exercise when it employed the cutter to gain entry to a van containing the warhead before the group could x-ray the warhead. The cutter can cut through aluminum, stainless steel, titanium, bulletproof glass, and armor.43
Also on board might be a supply of liquid nitrogen and its delivery system. Liquid nitrogen, at temperatures between –384°F and –410°F, could be used to freeze the electronics of a detonator, although an even more dramatic method of cooling would be to plunge the device into a slush of liquid and solid nitrogen. When properly insulated, in containers such as Dewar flasks, liquid nitrogen can be transported without significant loss caused by evaporation.44
More violent means of destroying a device might involve the use of explosives. A shaped charge such as the one used in Harvey’s Resort Hotel is one alternative. Even more drastic would be the use of a thirty-millimeter cannon to blow the bomb apart. In contrast to twenty-five-millimeter rounds, which are typically for antipersonnel weapons, thirty-millimeter rounds are generally used against armored vehicles or fortified bunkers. Such ammunition is fired by a variety of U.S. military platforms, including the A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft, the AH-64 Apache helicopter, and the Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, an amphibious vehicle intended for deployment in 2015.45
Another option is a .50 caliber rifle set on a tripod. The rifle was designed to attack parked or landing aircraft, armored personnel carriers, concrete bunkers, and bulk fuel storage facilities. Powerful enough to puncture armored limousines, it has an effective range of up to 2,000 yards in the hands of a skilled marksman. The ammunition for the rifle is the largest round available to civilians.46
If a thirty-millimeter cannon or .50 caliber rifle is used to destroy a device, deployment of aqueous (that is, watery) foam, such as that developed by Sandia and used during the Mirage Gold exercise, might be necessary. Technically, that foam is just one type of aqueous foam, beer and shaving cream being other examples. What all have in common is that they are “impermanent forms of matter” in which a gas, often air, is distributed in a mass of bubbles, each bubble separated from other bubbles by a liquid film that is almost, but not completely water.47
The foam placed inside the tent used to hold it during Mirage Gold was primarily engineered to absorb the radioactive material associated with dirty bombs as well as reduce pressures from a high-explosive blast. According to a Sandia fact sheet, “the resulting decrease in exposure to the population and contamination to downwind property can be dramatic.” That same fact sheet reported that fabric enclosures, such as a tent, have been designed in variety of sizes to mitigate the effects of up to several hundred pounds of high explosives. The equipment for generating the foam, which can produce 60 to 300 cubic feet with a cubic foot of water, along with the tent can be packaged for deployment.48
Sandia also noted several “deployment considerations.” One is that it can take labor and time to implement, and “therefore, people are at substantial risk of death or injury during the implementation.” In addition, it warns that “compromises to the render-safe and re-entry procedures should be considered.”49
While NEST’s leadership, personnel, and equipment were poised to deal with nuclear terrorism or extortion in 1996, late in that year it looked like they would be deploying to deal with another nuclear threat—revisiting the experience of Operation Morning Light in 1978 and the near deployment in 1982 when Cosmos 1402’s nuclear reactor threatened to return to earth. This time the problem was not a Soviet spacecraft, but only because there was no longer a Soviet Union. Rather, it was a Russian probe, Mars 96.
The probe was one of several missions to Mars launched that year. On November 7, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sent the one-ton Mars Global Surveyor on what would be a nine-year mission once it began orbiting Mars, which it started doing the following September. The probe’s camera and other instruments would find evidence that water had once flowed on Mars, produce a global topographic map of Mars, and discover evidence that the planet once had a global magnetic field similar to Earth’s. It would be the first American success with respect to Mars since the landing of two Viking spacecraft in 1976.50
On December 4, a Delta II rocket blasted off, carrying NASA’s Mars Pathfinder on the first leg of its journey to the red planet. The spacecraft landed on July 4, 1997, and released its key passenger, Sojourner, a rover equipped with scientific instruments to investigate the planet’s atmosphere, climate, geology, and composition of its rocks and soil. From its landing to its final transmission in September 1997, Pathfinder would return 2.3 billion bits of information, including more than 16,500 images from the lander and 550 images from the rover.51
In between the launches of Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder, Russia sent up its Mars 96 probe, which it “was counting on . . . to give [its space program] a new lease on life.” It carried over twenty instruments, from the United States and twenty European nations, to study the Martian surface and atmosphere, to study plasma, and to conduct astrophysical studies. At twelve minutes before midnight local time on Saturday, November 16, a four-stage Proton rocket carrying the Russian probe blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.52
The Russian spacecraft, weighing seven tons, consisted of five distinct vehicles. The largest section, at five tons, was to orbit the red planet. Then the two landers, each about 110 pounds, were supposed to enter the Martian atmosphere and transmit data from the surface. Finally, there were two “penetrators,” in the shape of golf tees, each weighing 143 pounds and designed to withstand impact with the Martian surface.53
But none of the components of Mars 96 would get close to the Martian surface. By the following morning, Russia’s military space forces were reporting that the mission had failed. The fourth stage of the Proton, which was to take the probe out of Earth’s orbit, after which the probe would fire its own small engine to complete the escape from Earth, failed. The Russian NTV network called it a “black day” for Russian space research. Media reports indicated that it was expected to fall to earth. Unlike Cosmos 954 and Cosmos 1402, Mars 96 did not have a nuclear reactor aboard, but it did carry eighteen small energy generators or “batteries” powered by plutonium-238 that were to provide power to the four landing craft. The plutonium consisted of about two hundred grams of pellets the size of pencil erasers, held in heatproof metal containers the size of thirty-five-millimeter film canisters.54
The batteries contained “a very modest amount of plutonium,” a Russian space official told CNN. “Nevertheless,” an NSC official told CNN, “in what is considered to be the extremely unlikely event that one or more of the batteries break open the United States is prepared to offer all necessary assistance to any nation to deal with any resulting problems.” And it appeared for a while that the nation that might need America’s assistance was one of its closest allies and the host of key U.S. intelligence and military facilities.55
Robert Bell, an NSC official, reported that the probe was expected to hit central or eastern Australia, after it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere about noon Australian time. To monitor the Russian probe, the U.S. Space Command and its subsidiary, the Air Force Space Command, employed the same sort of resources used during Morning Light. Bell also said that “SPACECOM believes the size of the probe is large enough to give pieces of it a chance of surviving re-entry, though most of the spacecraft will burn up in the atmosphere before [impact].”56
President Bill Clinton, vacationing in Hawaii before a planned state visit to Australia, spoke to Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Whether or not they specifically discussed NEST, the organization received orders on Sunday, November 17, to prepare for a possible mission to locate any radioactive material that might land Down Under. But just as Cosmos 954 did not crash where it was first expected, neither did Mars 96.57
Further analysis of the space probe’s orbit led the U.S. Space Command to revise its estimates. Now the most likely unlucky country was Bolivia or Chile. That produced, at higher levels of the Department of Energy, a change in thinking about deploying NEST, although not without some dissent. It was thought that deploying NEST to either of those nations might not be in the best interests of the United States. Australia was one of America’s closest military and intelligence allies. It was a key member of a decades-old signals intelligence alliance with the United States, Britain, and Canada and the host to key facilities employed by the United States to operate signals intelligence and missile detection satellites.58
Bolivia and Chile were not in that class. They were considered “not very important,” according to a former NEST member. And aside from any hostility that a U.S. presence might produce, there was concern that the operating environment was simply too harsh. The Chilean landscape, with its extremely high altitudes, would make it difficult for a NEST helicopter, with its 13,000-foot ceiling, to operate effectively. Also mitigating against deployment was the minimal threat from the plutonium-238. If the batteries had not actually broken up, the whole operation would be unnecessary.59
But Robert Kelley, head of the Remote Sensing Laboratory at the time, was one of those who believed there would be value in sending NEST, that such a deployment would stretch the team and provide experiences that couldn’t be gotten in planned exercises. The whole argument became moot when Bolivia and Chile appeared to escape unscathed, for initial reports indicated that the probe reentered the atmosphere above the southern Pacific Ocean west of South America around 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, with any debris, if it survived reentry, apparently landing in the ocean.60
Subsequently, Moscow admitted that the object tracked on Sunday, which had been the subject of such concern, was only the plutonium-free fourth stage and not the probe itself. Further analysis of data from U.S. tracking resources, including DSP satellites, led the U.S. Space Command to conclude that debris from the probe that survived reentry “would have fallen over a 200-mile portion of the Pacific Ocean, Chile, and Bolivia.”61 But that change in conclusion as to the fate of Mars 96 did not change the plans for NEST personnel. They still remained home.