Actually, the name of the test isn't Divine Strike. It's Divine Strake. (A strake is a strip of longitudinal wood planking or metal plating used for controlling water flow around a boat or air flow over an airplane.)
The Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) had originally planned the test to occur on June 2, 2006, roughly 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, near the center of the former nuclear testing site. After some public outcry, the test was postponed till June 23. After an emergency injunction was filed, it was postponed again, this time indefinitely. But to answer your question, the public couldn't get within roughly 50 miles of the test, which is how far the testing site is from any civilian access. The mushroom cloud that test would create, however, is predicted to rise 10,000 feet into the sky, which could probably be seen from any horizon-viewing point in greater Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, here's the poop on Divine Strake.
Divine Strake was planned to be the largest open-air high-explosive chemical detonation ever attempted. The explosives, however, weren't a bomb. They were just a pile of chemicals, consisting of 700 tons (1.4 million pounds, the equivalent of 593 tons of TNT) of commercial ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. The previous largest test at the Nevada Test Site was with 18 tons, so Divine Strake would have been 37 times the size of that one. In addition, the blast would be 280 times larger than the similar explosion that leveled the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Here's another way of looking at the magnitude of the planned blast. The largest conventional weapon in the U.S. arsenal, according to one source, is the MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Blast) bomb, which contains nearly nine tons of explosives, with a yield of approximately 10% of a kiloton of TNT. The explosive power of Divine Strake would have been equated with approximately 60% of a kiloton of TNT.
And here's another way. Divine Strake is about double the lowest-yield option on the B61 nuclear gravity bomb, and one source suggests that Divine Strake may have been intended to fine-tune the use of the B61 nuclear bomb.
Anyway, the test was supposed to simulate a low-yield nuclear-weapon ground shock, part of an effort to design a weapon that can penetrate solid-rock formations in which a country might store nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (Iran comes to mind). One Web site we visited noted that this test was designed to "improve confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage."
The test would have been ignited in a 36-foot-deep hole near Target U16B, which consists of a hook-shaped tunnel drilled through a limestone formation and connected to three portals and a vent hole. Each of the tunnel entrances is sealed by large steel doors, 14 feet tall, 13 feet wide, and 1.5 feet thick. The idea was to measure the ground shock and the damage caused at different levels of depth.
Apparently, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has been planning the test since 2002. Officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which operates the test site, reportedly notified the state government and its congressional delegation in December 2005 and, again reportedly, the Nevada Test Site obtained the required state approvals and air-quality permits in January 2006.
However, a Las Vegas lawyer filed an emergency injunction against the test on behalf of some members of the Winnemucca Indian Colony and other downwinders, in Nye County and Utah. As part of the court proceedings, an examination of the federal government’s environmental paperwork for the blast isn’t complete. The Salt Lake Tribune reports, "Nevada air-quality regulators have said that they don't have enough details about the blast to decide whether they can issue a pollution permit. In addition, regulators from Utah's air-quality and radiation offices have been assigned to review the environmental assessment for assurances that any toxic material from the 10,000-foot debris cloud will stay within the Nevada Test Site borders, as the government has promised.
Meanwhile, both Utah and Nevada Congressional delegations objected to Divine Strake, as did various Native American, downwinder, and peace-activist protest groups. The DTRA will no doubt push for the test at some point, but again according to the Salt Lake Tribune, "DTRA and NNSA officials said during a tour last month that they won't load a mountaintop pit with explosives during Nevada's lightning season. That season begins in mid-June and ends in mid-July."
