Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

water-filled compartments into which reactors could be submerged for the tests. Near the pool was a
platform and gantry crane for “in air” tests. A control building served both the pool and the platform.
Construction began in 1958 and was completed in 1959. 196
Another support facility, the Low-Power Test Facility (LPTF), was located about 1.25 miles southeast
of the A&M area and near the Shield Test Facility. Reactor assemblies were preliminarily tested here at
“zero” or low power. Two low-power reactors, the Hot Critical Experiment, and the Critical Experiment
Tank were operated in the LPTF in 1958, both associated with ANP research. Several buildings were
constructed there including a single-story cinder block building (TAN-640) which contained two
poured-concrete test cells. A wall 5 ft thick served as a shield between the cells and the rest of the facility.
The walls between the cells were four feet thick, allowing personnel to work in one cell while the reactor
was operating in the other. 197
Although GE demonstrated the principle of nuclear-powered flight, one of its major disappointments
was to find that the reactor could not heat the engine air to the desired high temperatures, a requirement
for fast bomber speeds. A nuclear airplane might be able to fly, but if it could not sprint at rapid speeds to
evade the enemy or maneuver quickly, it could not serve as a military weapon. 198
The End of the ANP Program: 1961. During the course of ANP experiments, the Department of
Defense was simultaneously improving the technology of long-range guided missiles, another method of
delivering a bomb to a far-away target. It proved to be more reliable and safer than a manned
nuclear-powered bomber. In 1961 the new president, John F. Kennedy, was looking for funds to beef up
the military's conventional forces and build the country's supply of Minuteman rockets and Polaris-firing
submarines. He canceled the ANP program because, he said, “nearly fifteen years and about $1 billion
have been devoted to the attempted development of a nuclear-powered aircraft; but the possibility a
militarily useful aircraft in the foreseeable future is still very remote...” The ANP cut would save $35
million. Other military programs would, he felt, produce more tangible and immediate benefits. 199
Following the cancellation of the program in 1961, which came as a shock to the unprepared GE
employees, the mission of TAN facilities changed considerably. The hangar and its control building were
never beneficially used for an airplane, for example. But the hot shops, laboratories, fabrication and
assembly shops could be turned to other demands and other programs. Many ANP facilities were altered
and reused for purposes other than their original ones. Others remained vacant or underused for years. In
1970, a private industrial council based in Idaho Falls, interested in marketing the vacant spaces at NRTS,
estimated that 20 vacant buildings with over 223,000 square feet of floor space were available—most of
them at TAN. 200
False Starts and New Programs at TAN in the 1960s. Another nuclear-technology program that
had been underway in the United States during the 1950s was a program called Systems for Nuclear
Auxiliary Power (SNAP). The object of this research was to devise a compact auxiliary power system for
space vehicles and satellites. By the 1960s SNAP was a joint project of the AEC and the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
196. Thumbnail Sketch March 1959, p. 14.
197. R. E. Wood et al, Operating Manual for the Low Power Test Facility (Idaho Falls: General Electric Report DC 59-8-718, 1959),
p. 6.
198. Stacy, Hangar HAER, p. 46.
199. “Kennedy Asks $2 Billion Defense Insurance Hike,” and “A-Plane Work Halt Asked by JFK in Defense Message,” Idaho Daily
Statesman, March 29, 1961, p. 1 and p. 6 respectively.
200. Dr. E. Fast, compiler, Potentially Available Facilities at the National Reactor Testing Station (Idaho Falls: Eastern Idaho Nuclear
Industrial Council, February 1970), p. 14.
246