TOTEM EXPLOSIONS

TOTEM TRIALS

The Totem trails involved five kitten explosions and two major explosions.

Dates and times used are the same as on official information which was Australian Central Standard Time; 9 hours 30 minutes ahead of GMT.  Some internet sources that the web master has seen state the dates and times in GMT.

The purpose of the major trials was apparently to test:
• Plutonium made as a by-product of a power station reactor and to
• Test smaller output atomic weapons.

Totem Atomic Explosions

The time between the two trials would be needed to build some of the infrastructure for the second trial such as the building housing the assembly of the second weapon.  The tower for the second trail was erected prior to the first explosion.  That is no doubt why the two identical towers were so strong. The webmaster strongly believes that the height of the centre of each weapon was approximately 93 feet above ground level.  Every source that I have seen on the web and elsewhere give the height of 100 feet or equivalent in metres 30 or 30.5.  The implication being the the weapons were at that height.

	Totem 1 The photo shows the Totem 1 atomic explosion a very short time after firing.(about 20 u sec)  The steps in the lower part of the fire ball are caused by the rapidly expanding hot gas being shaped by the walk ways around the outside of the tower.> Look near the bottom for the tower 6 inch angle iron legs and 3 inch diagonal bracing. The bulges in pattens of dark and light are thought by the web master to due to holes in the weapon casing where the initial detonator explosion has gone out through first.

Exploding Kittens

There were 5 kitten explosions.   Beadell said kitten explosions were trials of trigger devices.  The ones he saw were "on the ground, just like little boxes."  At least one was on a little iron stand "three feet off the ground at the most". Beadell could only have seen the first two kittens because the Australian party left Emu to find a new atomic test site (later named Maralinga) on 4 October 1953.

The kitten trials were obviously too late to provide usefull information that could be incorporated into the Totem weapon trials.  The components for the major weapons would have been manufactured and dispatched from England prior to the kittens trials.  Kittens were also tested several years later at Maralinga.  It is understood that active components of kittens have been replaced by neutron guns in the next generation of weapons.  The webmaster first became aware of Beryllium and Polonium components in weapons after seeing a diagram in a TV news report of findings in Iraq not long after the first gulf war of 1991 as I recall.

The web-master is puzzled that there were 5 kittens but only 4 kitten sites prepared.  The webmaster believes that the 4 kitten sites were chosen so that each unused site could be accessed without the need to go near a previously used site.  The 5^th kitten appears to have been an afterthought.   It was "specially engineered and arranged in Australia".  Where the 5^th site was is a mystery.  Did they just use the 4^th site twice since they would have already have had the firing and monitoring equipment set up?  Perhaps it was too dangerous to go near a used site and another site was used.

The web-master has read that beryllium and Polonium 210 were released in the kitten trials.  Both are known to be extremely poisionous.  See below.

Kitten Safety

• The range was laid out so that the explosions were down wind of the kitten control and monitoring point.
• Gas masks were to be worn.
• The tests were intended to occur "about 2 hours" after dawn and only if wind conditions were stable and in a suitable direction. 
  Apparently "about 2 hours" was elastic, refering to the table above.
• The area down wind was clear of personnel.
• After the kitten exploded the area was checked for safety by radiation health person then cables were disconnected 100 yards from the explosion.
• The last 100 yards of cables nearest to the kittens were to be abandoned because of fear of contamination.

Poisonous Kittens

Beryllium is extremely poisonous, even in minute quantities.  Polonium is very radioactive and was used in small amounts.

Beryllium metal was also called Glucinum in English until about 100 years ago because its salts are sweet to taste like Glucose. (still called that in French)

Polonium was refined from ore and discovered in 1898 by Madame and Pierre Curie.  She named it after her native Poland.

Polonium is said to have been used for the murder of a former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko after eating at ITSU restruant Picadilly, London in November 2006, "an amount too small to see would be a lethal dose".

Bibliography

References

The colours of this page are black and white to represent the flash of an explosion with a black cloud.

I also like yellow & black for the Tigers Australian Rules Football Team

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