Tonopah Test Range, Nevada

The Tonopah Test Range is a 525 square mile test facility on the north end of the Air Force's 4,000 square mile Nellis Range Complex in Nevada, and is the principal weapons field test site for Sandia Labs, based in New Mexico. There are major facilities here, including barracks for several hundred people, hangers, and a two and a half mile long paved runway, all the components of a substantial Air Force Base. However, no fighting wing or detachment is officially stationed here. It is a test facility that has been used for the development of the Stealth Fighter (the F-117 A, which claims this as its test base, though many suspect that it primarily flew out of the more secret Groom Lake Base, also located on the Nellis Range), and for many other weapons tests. Sandia National Lab tests ballistic and guided missiles, and other vehicles here. The lab conducted missile penetrator tests here, a technology used in the Gulf War, and "high-explosives studies involving blast effects, shock wave phenomena, cratering, and case ruptures". Much about this facility remains classified. One major known test was the plutonium dispersal test series Clean Slate I, II and III performed in 1963. These tests were reportedly safety experiments, part of a program to develop containment systems for radioactive material, for storage and transportation. Plutonium was dispersed over the three test areas, all on the Tonopah Test Range.