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United States The Military

Los Alamos's New Project: Updating America's Aging Nuclear Weapons (apnews.com) 192

Posted by EditorDavid from the home-of-Oppenheimer dept.
During World War II, "Los Alamos was the perfect spot for the U.S. government's top-secret Manhattan Project," remembers the Associated Press.

"The community is facing growing pains again, 80 years later, as Los Alamos National Laboratory takes part in the nation's most ambitious nuclear weapons effort since World War II." The mission calls for modernizing the arsenal with droves of new workers producing plutonium cores — key components for nuclear weapons. Some 3,300 workers have been hired in the last two years, with the workforce now topping more than 17,270. Close to half of them commute to work from elsewhere in northern New Mexico and from as far away as Albuquerque, helping to nearly double Los Alamos' population during the work week... While the priority at Los Alamos is maintaining the nuclear stockpile, the lab also conducts a range of national security work and research in diverse fields of space exploration, supercomputing, renewable energy and efforts to limit global threats from disease and cyberattacks...

The headline grabber, though, is the production of plutonium cores. Lab managers and employees defend the massive undertaking as necessary in the face of global political instability. With most people in Los Alamos connected to the lab, opposition is rare. But watchdog groups and non-proliferation advocates question the need for new weapons and the growing price tag... Aside from pressing questions about the morality of nuclear weapons, watchdogs argue the federal government's modernization effort already has outpaced spending predictions and is years behind schedule. Independent government analysts issued a report earlier this month that outlined the growing budget and schedule delays.
"A hairline scratch on a warhead's polished black cone could send the bomb off course..." notes an earlier article.

"The U.S. will spend more than $750 billion over the next 10 years replacing almost every component of its nuclear defenses, including new stealth bombers, submarines and ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in the country's most ambitious nuclear weapons effort since the Manhattan Project."
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Los Alamos's New Project: Updating America's Aging Nuclear Weapons More

Los Alamos's New Project: Updating America's Aging Nuclear Weapons

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  • "A hairline scratch on a warhead’s polished black cone could send the bomb off course."

    I always assumed a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile built in the U.S. would have a guidance system that could keep it on course even after hitting a MiG or a frozen chicken. Sadly, it seems I was overly optimistic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dr. Tom ( 23206 )

      That quote is entirely FUD, to make you afraid, so you will comply.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rei ( 128717 )

      This claim is utter nonsense.

    • The missiles are stated as 50 years old, so they may be purely ballistic. By being ballistic they get fired off into a trajectory by a guided rocket but once released it goes where the winds take it. These are strategic weapons, intended to take out large targets with large explosions, they are not some precision weapon. The path they take is even in the name, intercontinental ballistic missile. This is the realm of "close only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear ordnance". Even if the U

      • Not even that. Even ballistic missiles can still be steered in descent.

        For reference, take GBUs [wikipedia.org]. These are essentially unpropelled bombs that have "steering fins" that allow them to adjust their drop path. These things are hardly a new development, they have been in use since WW2 [wikipedia.org].

        So just because "onze ze rocketz are up", we still care "where ze come down". And we can guide them.

      • This is the realm of "close only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear ordnance".

        You forgot one: government work.

    • "A hairline scratch on a warhead’s polished black cone could send the bomb off course."

      This is bullshit. Anyone who EVER had as much as dabbled in rocketry knows it.

      Rockets aren't exactly the most stable of delivery vehicles. And then there is wind. There is a reason for these gimballed thrusters that allow you to nudge the rocket in one direction or another. A scratch on a warhead doesn't mean jack shit.

      • I think he's talking about the warhead as the entire re-entry vehicle, and not the actual bomb inside. And a scratch on the front of it likely would effect accuracy a little, but it shouldn't have any real effect unless it's done with an axle grinder or something.

        On a ballistic missle each of the MIRVs needs to be able to survive reentry to Earth at very high speed.

        • Not even that. The cone shroud only matters on the way up, and the way up is powered. With a rocket that has to compensate for far, far more severe problems like wind than a damn scratch in the nose cone. Unless that "scratch" is big enough to compromise the integrity of the cone, there is no effect on the trajectory whatsoever.

      • Shhhhh! Don't you care about the scratch inspector being able to feed his family?

    • "A hairline scratch on a warhead’s polished black cone could send the bomb off course." I always assumed a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile built in the U.S. would have a guidance system that could keep it on course even after hitting a MiG or a frozen chicken. Sadly, it seems I was overly optimistic.

      I always assumed the accepted CEP range of 200m for a Minuteman III landing on target provided plenty of justification to dismantle a bullshit excuse like "hairline scratch" to justify taxpayer spend.

      Not to mention that nuke being dropped is probably flanked by another few dozen. As if "off course" is gonna really matter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      The "B" in ICBM is for ballistic. Hypersonic and traditional cruise missiles are guided and can carry nuclear warheads. But when you're throwing nukes around, a few hundred meters off target is still a hit.

  • Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Monday September 25, 2023 @05:58AM (#63874855) Journal

    That there are still people who think you can just wish away nuclear weapons.

    Similar to how a gun is just a tube with a projectile and an explosive, a nuclear weapons is 1940s tech. Just saying "let's not use these anymore" is going to disarm you, but not anybody else.

    • I hope they never get used, at the same time, I wish that the US has the most advanced version available that could obliterate anyone.

      And I wish for the same for Russia, China, India, Britain, France...

      Nukes are a surefire way to keep even the most insane loonie in check. Because everyone who starts a war thinks they'll win it, preferably easily. Even Hitler thought he would win WW2. And he would not have started it knowing "if I do, I'll go to hell in a handbasket".

      • The problem is that nuclear weapons are really only useful if you've already been nuked, or the enemy plans to literally kill all of you.

        In a conventional fight they don't serve much purpose against someone else with a decent amount of nukes.

        Most countries given the choice between being conquered and dying but taking out a large chunk of the enemy with them, but the enemy likely still existing afterwards would choose life.

        Even the worst case, it's expected the US wouldn't lose more than 40 million people i

        • Nukes are only useful to avoid a conventional fight because both sides fear the escalation to nuclear.

          Once the fight is on, nukes are a liability because once one side notices that they will lose and that there is no hope of winning anymore, they might decide to at least make sure that everyone loses.

          • One can say that, but it does not make it true. Putin would rather not use nuclear weapons, as the history books would mark him as defeated. His supporters certainly want to trade oil and gas on the international markets for the next several decades. Putin problem isnt that he cannot win the war on the ground, it is he cannot win the war in a way NATO will also consider the war ended. If Kiev fell in 3 weeks, NATO would have called it a day and upped the number of troops on alert. Now that it is s

            • Putin most of all cannot use nukes. We've seen the state his army is in. Now ponder how insane the embezzlement and corruption would be in a branch of service where anyone involved could think with good reason that these things will NEVER EVER see any kind of action.

              Also, using nukes would isolate him completely. China would instantly drop him like a hot potato simply because they know that no later than then it's him or the US. And they will choose the US. Because otherwise, their economy is shot. Lukashen

  • Because the world is currently more unstable.
    72 years old and my crowning philosophical realization is that we are simply not an adequately intelligent species for viability. But they got that Senate dress code problem worked out to the satisfaction of primate preening.

    • we are simply not an adequately intelligent species for viability.

      https://www.space.com/37157-po... [space.com]

      "4. Intelligent life self-destructs. Whether via weapons of mass destruction, planetary pollution, or manufactured virulent disease, it may be the nature of intelligent species to commit suicide, existing for only a short time before winking out of existence."

      To that list we could now add, people above some level of comfort come to the view that procreation is just too much of a hassle to bother with.

  • Should have continued AGM-131 missile (Score:3)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Monday September 25, 2023 @08:58AM (#63875265)

    I think they made a huge mistake by discontinuing the AGM-131 SRAM II missile in the early 1990's. SRAM II would likely have replaced most of our gravity drop nuclear bombs and allowed any delivery plane attack the target with far less chance of having to deal with local air defenses.

  • Appropriate effects, but we will envelop the planet with cascading explosions reaching for the horizon, not the moon. Years later, life will continue, without us. We will become a distant memory the Earth would have forgotten. As we stand on the "Pale blue dot" in the middle of an endless no where, no one will be around to care. We are nothing. I am nothing. You are nothing compared to what you see in the sky.

  • Can you imagine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fredrated ( 639554 ) on Monday September 25, 2023 @11:41AM (#63875671) Journal

    if we spent this kind of money to address climate change? We might have a chance to avert a catastrophe as great as nuclear war.

  • Well the US is the biggest hypocrite and bully in the world, pointing fingers and threatening others like Iran and North Korea to not create nuclear weapons, but in the meantime, replace and even expand its own arsenal. Instead of modernizing nuclear weapons, they should be just clearing the old stock. But that will never happen as these bullies want to keep their weapons, but don't want others to have them too. This is exactly the reason why Iran and North Korea are just as much entitled to create and have

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Have you taken even a moment to learn anything these countries the United States "bullies". They're some of the worst human rights offenders on the planet and you're going on about how entitled these people are to have nuclear weapons.

      I mean, please forgive us Americans for not getting along with countries who not only deprive their own people of democracy but torture and kill their own citizens for offences that wouldnt even be illegal in any civilized country. How insensitive of us!

  • Someone explain to me how a hairline scratch on the nuclear core is going to redirect the bomb off course.

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