Editing Nevada Test Site (section)

==Destruction and survivability testing==
[[File:Apple-2House (10500 ft) 001.jpg|right|thumb|This model two-story house was constructed {{convert|10,500|ft}} away from the ground-zero of the ''[[Apple-2]]'' nuclear test.]]  Testing of the various effects of detonation of nuclear weapons was carried out during above-ground tests. Many kinds of vehicles (ranging from cars to aircraft), nuclear-fallout and standard bomb-shelters, public-utility stations and other building structures and equipment were placed at measured distances away from "ground zero", the spot on the surface immediately under or over the center of the blast. [[Operation Cue]] tested [[civil defense]] measures.<ref>{{citation| title=Operation Cue, A.K.A. Nuking Houses for Emergency Preparedness| url=https://www.popsci.com/blog-network/vintage-space/operation-cue-aka-nuking-houses-emergency-preparedness| date=November 5, 2014| first=Amy Shira| last=Teitel| access-date=May 7, 2018| archive-date=May 17, 2016| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160517045510/http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/vintage-space/operation-cue-aka-nuking-houses-emergency-preparedness| url-status=live}}</ref>  Such civilian and commercial effects testing was done with many of the atomic tests of [[Operation Greenhouse]] on [[Eniwetok Atoll]], [[Operation Upshot-Knothole]] and [[Operation Teapot]] at the site.

Homes and commercial buildings of many different types and styles were built to standards typical of American and (less-often) European cities. Other such structures included military fortifications (of types used by both [[NATO]] and the Soviet-led [[Warsaw Pact]]) and civil-defense as well as "backyard"-type shelters. In such a typical test, several of the same buildings and structures might be built using the same layouts and plans with different types of materials, paints, general landscaping, cleanliness of the surrounding yards, wall-angles or varying distances from ground zero. Mannequins were placed in and around the test vehicles and buildings, aside from some left out in the open, for testing clothing and shock effects.

High-speed cameras were placed in protected locations to capture effects of radiation and shock waves. Typical imagery from these cameras shows paint boiling off the buildings, which are then pushed violently away from ground zero by the shock wave before being drawn toward the detonation by the suction caused by the climbing mushroom cloud. Footage from these cameras has become iconic, used in various media and available in the public domain.<ref>{{citation| title=Operation Cue (1964 revision)| publisher=U.S. Department of Defense, Office of Civil Defense| year=1964| url=https://archive.org/details/Operatio1964| access-date=May 7, 2018}}</ref>

This testing allowed the development of Civil Defense guidelines, distributed to the public, to increase the likelihood of survival in case of air- or spaceborne nuclear attack.