Nuclear Weapons Technology: Focus on the Stockpile; LALP 97-134

Format is 10 inches by 8 inches.[4], 71, [1] pages, plus covers. Glossary. Acronyms Illustrations (many in color). The Nuclear Weapons Technology Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory has one principal mission: to provide support for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. With the cessation of nuclear testing, the Laboratory took on two complementary dimensions. The first was the task of maintaining in a safe and reliable condition those weapons for which Los Alamos had design responsibility. The second task was to ensure that the U. S. Government, any potential adversaries, and U.S. scientists and engineers all had confidence in the Laboratory's ability to successfully carry out its mission. As the stockpile aged, the Laboratory was working to develop less intrusive and more revealing surveillance technologies that permitted more extensive, nondestructive evaluation of weapons. The contents of this overview booklet include: Reducing the Global Nuclear Danger, Nuclear Weapons in US National Security Strategy, Thermonuclear Weapons, Assessing and Certifying an Aging Stockpile, Enhanced Surveillance, The Role of Numerical Computing, Refurbishing Nuclear Weapon Components, Stockpile Surety, High Explosives Program, Production of Tritium, Countering Proliferation, and Responding to Nuclear Emergencies. Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos or LANL for short) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory initially organized during World War II for the design of nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project. It is located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. Los Alamos was selected as the top secret location for bomb design in late 1942, and officially commissioned the next year, under the management of University of California. At the time it was known as Project Y and was the center for weapon design and overall coordination. Other labs, today known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Hanford Site, concentrated on the production of uranium and plutonium bomb fuels. Los Alamos was the heart of the project, collecting together some of the world's most famous scientists, among them numerous Nobel Prize winners. The site was known variously as Project Y, Los Alamos Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory through this period. The lab's existence was announced to the world in the post-WWII era, when it became known universally as Los Alamos. In 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission formed a second design lab under the direction of the University of California, Berkeley, becoming the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Since that date the two labs have competed on a wide variety of bomb designs. With the ending of the Cold War, both labs turned their focus increasingly to civilian missions. Today, Los Alamos is one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world. It conducts multidisciplinary research in fields such as national security, space exploration, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing. The Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program is a United States Department of Energy program to ensure that the nuclear capabilities of the United States are not eroded as nuclear weapons age. It costs more than $4 billion annually[4] to test nuclear weapons and build advanced science facilities, such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Such facilities have been deemed necessary under the program since President Bill Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1997,[4][5] although building such facilities is a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT requires signatory nuclear weapons states to build down their nuclear arsenals toward their complete elimination.…