etudiant said:
Apart from aerospace, I make no claim to be informed beyond what I read in the news media and in the reports of congressional hearings.
Those sources have repeatedly stated that the Stewardship program is aimed to ensure the continued effectiveness of the US nuclear arsenal, not at improving its performance. The 2008 decision to abandon the Reliable Replacement Warhead program supports that view. .
etudiant,
100% WRONG AGAIN One of the provisions that authorized the development of the RRW was that it provided "no new military capability". The RRW was canceled
purely on
political grounds; it was canceled in 2007 when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, and no further provisions for funding RRW could be passed with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. When Boehner became Speaker in 2011, the new Impediment became the President.
Evidently you harbor the mistaken idea that the purpose of the redesign / LEP process is to "improve performance". That is just NOT true - the purpose is to maintain the performance and safety.
Let me refer you to the following from the Associate Director of Lawrence Livermore responsible for the nuclear weapons program:
https://str.llnl.gov/Mar12/comMar12.html
WHEN the weapons comprising our nuclear forces of deterrence were originally designed decades ago, scientists knew the warheads could not remain safe, secure, and reliable indefinitely. Over time, components and materials deteriorate as the weapons age. As a result, the nuclear design laboratories—Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia national laboratories—continually assess the health of the stockpile and determine whether a particular weapon type needs to undergo a life-extension program (LEP).
LEP efforts include identifying and correcting potential technical issues by refurbishing or replacing certain components. LEPs also allow us to strengthen existing safety systems, for example, by introducing insensitive high explosives, which are more resistant than conventional high explosives to detonation from fire or accident.
LEPs are an important tool that allows us to seamlessly sustain the nation’s nuclear weapons. In effect, LEPs are triumphs of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Stockpile Stewardship Program, which was launched at the end of the Cold War to maintain our weapons without nuclear testing. Advances in science, engineering, and computing—representing everything we have learned about nuclear reactions and materials science for the past 70 years—are incorporated into LEP efforts to ensure the devices remain safer, more secure, more reliable, longer-lived, and more maintainable than ever.
Dr. Goodwin says it in the first paragraph of his commentary, that the nuclear weapons would not remain safe and reliable indefinitely.
Again, let me explain this in terms of an analogy. Have you ever heard of dynamite becoming "tender"? Dynamite was invented by Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize. Nobel made his fortune by solving a major industrial problem, which was that high-explosives like nitro-glycerin were extremely "touchy" and hard to handle. The "touchy" nature of "nitro" is legendary. Nobel found that if you mixed "nitro" with sawdust or a type of clay called "diatomaceous earth"; the mixture was more stable and easier to handle; but could still be detonated on command with Nobel's "blasting cap".
Unfortunately, dynamite didn't stay stable and safe to handle indefinitely. As dynamite aged, the "nitro" tends to separate from the sawdust or clay. You end up with a stick that has little pools of "nitro" or the "nitro" leeches into the paper wrapper. Once again, you have small volumes of pure "nitro" and that "nitro" is susceptible to shocks and bumps, and can be
extremely dangerous to handle. If the dynamite is shocked or bumped, the little pools of liquid "nitro" can explode just as easily as if you had pure "nitro" because that is what you have, pure liquid "nitro". The explosion of that bit of "nitro" will then propagate and set off the explosion of the whole stick of dynamite. Essentially, the dynamite becomes as dangerous to handle as the original "nitro" from which it is made. When dynamite ages to this degree, it is called "tender".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite
Over time, the dynamite will "weep" or "sweat" its nitroglycerin, which can then pool in the bottom of the box or storage area. (For that reason, explosive manuals recommend the repeated turning over of boxes of dynamite in storage.)
If someone took dynamite that is approaching the dangerous "tender" stage and remixed and reformed the dynamite to reestablish its stable properties; would you call that "improving the performance" of the explosive? It's not improving on the explosive; it's reestablishing the safety margins that one had when the dynamite was first made.
In essence, the redesign / LEP process is NOT for improving performance; but to address problems that develop as the weapon ages, and even enhance the safety over the original specs. Note where Dr. Goodwin states,
LEPs also allow us to strengthen existing safety systems, for example, by introducing insensitive high explosives, which are more resistant than conventional high explosives to detonation from fire or accident.
You seem to be stuck in this mindset that changes / modifications / redesign of nuclear weapons must be for the sole purpose of "improving the performance" ( "making a bigger bang" ). However, Dr. Goodwin's commentary above shows that not to be the reasoning. It is about
sustaining the level of safety and reliability; or as the first sentence of the last paragraph of the quote above states:
LEPs are an important tool that allows us to seamlessly sustain the nation’s nuclear weapons
Greg