Report on the Feasibility of Using Existing Pits for the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program
Frank,Of possible interest to your readers.
-Anonymous
Thanks Anonymous. Below is the executive summary. The full report can be downloaded here.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Direct pit reuse, the use of existing pits with no modifications, does not meet all the objectives of the RRW program, but can offer limited improvements in performance margin and surety for some systems. Modifications of existing pits would allow for more margin and surety improvements than direct reuse; this would require some of the same investments in our R&D and manufacturing infrastructure as is required to establish a production capacity for new pits. Using newly manufactured pits offers the most flexibility for improving performance margin, surety, and for meeting all of the goals of the RRW program. The Nuclear Weapons Council believes that a pit production capacity of 50-80 new pits per year is the capacity that should be implemented, consistent with the March, 2008 DoD/DOE white paper. All options for the future stockpile will require investments in the science tools that allow us to assess and certify the stockpile in the absence of nuclear testing.
8 comments:
This reminds me of the way third world countries keep their old automobiles running long after they've become junk.
Congress and the next Administration will be satisfied as long as LANL can produce a very minimal number of pits per year, just enough to prove that we still have the capability. We'll also be forced to do it using mostly old facilities and a reduced budget. The number of pits produced will be very small, something in the area of 10 or less per year. That's as far as pit production will ever go at LANL.
Yes, but the LANL weapons budget
is greatly bloated. Somehow (I don't
claim to know how) we have got
to get rid of at least 50% of the
managers and administrative staff.
AND, clean out the facilities
management function also.
4:32 pm: "Somehow (I don't
claim to know how) we have got
to get rid of at least 50% of the
managers and administrative staff."
Who is "we"??? If you think anyone less than the Congress and the NNSA Administrator have that power, then please be specific about how.
The managers and the administrative staff will be the last people to be let go at LANL because they can hide within the overhead accounts. When it comes time to deal with LANL's declining budgets, it will be the working research staff that take the biggest hits. Deliverables will be reduced or eliminated to cover for the lack of people doing scientific work at the lab.
It's time to hit the managerial 'reset' switch at LANL and LLNL. Getting rid of the for-profit LLCs would save the nation over $400 million per year.
This nation can't afford NNSA's luxury LLC solutions for the weapon research labs. I'll bet there are plenty of non-profit institutions that would love to take on these management contracts.
11:49 am: "I'll bet there are plenty of non-profit institutions that would love to take on these management contracts."
Like the University of California??? HeHeHeHe
How about Battelle Institute? They seem to do a decent job running PNNL.
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