Well I dont really know one way or the other, but just some thoughts here.

Your thinking of operation starfish and fishbowl. Dominic seemed to be different.

Most of these shots were conducted with free-fall bombs dropped from B-52 bomber aircraft. Twenty of these shots were to test new weapons designs; six to test weapons effects; and several shots to confirm the reliability of existing weapons. The Thor missile was also used to lift warheads into near-space to conduct high-altitude nuclear explosion tests; these shots were collectively called Operation Fishbowl.[2]

Sounds like one of the experimental weapon designs was the thor missile which is what they used for operation fishbowl.

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency. It was launched from Johnston Atoll on July 9, 1962, and was the largest nuclear test conducted in outer space, and one of five conducted by the US in space.

A Thor rocket carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (designed at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 2 reentry vehicle was launched from Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, about 900 miles (1,450 km) west-southwest of Hawaii. The explosion took place at an altitude of 250 miles (400 km), above a point 19 miles (31 km) southwest of Johnston Atoll. It had a yield of 1.4 Mt (5.9 PJ). The explosion was about 10° above the horizon as seen from Hawaii, at 11 pm Hawaii time.[1]: 

The Operation Fishbowl nuclear tests were originally planned to be completed during the first half of 1962 with three tests named Bluegill, Starfish and Urraca.[2]

I understand how you guys think, that were in gods fishbowl or something.

But to me, it was more like trying to get out of the fishbowl. You can claim they hit the firmanent.

I think they were trying to blast open the van allen radiation belts so they could fly through and start exploring. But instead of blowing a hole, the radiation was just absorbed by the magnetic fields. I cant prove anything, but I think the timing was funny.

The first evidence for the radiation belts was reported in 1958 by James Van Allen using data from a cosmic ray detector on the very first NASA mission: Explorer 1 spacecraft. Explorer 1 launched into Earth's orbit on a Jupiter C missile from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 31, 1958

4 years later they are blowing nuclear bombs up there with the sole purpose to see what it did to the magnetic fields. Crazy fuckers. Then the moon landing happened supposedly 7 years later.

Yeah turns out if we just fly through the weak part really really quick well be fine guys.

Yeah ok ^^.