Released on = May 30, 2007, 7:31 am

Press Release Author = Federation of American Scientists

Industry = Non Profit

Press Release Summary = The three major components of the Stockpile Stewardship
Program (SSP) at the Department of Energy are all seriously over budget and
seriously behind schedule, according to a report issued today by the Federation of
American Scientists (FAS).

Press Release Body = The three major components of the Stockpile Stewardship Program
(SSP) at the Department of Energy are all seriously over budget and seriously behind
schedule, according to a report issued today by the Federation of American
Scientists (FAS).

The paper, The Stockpile Stewardship Program: Fifteen Years On, reviews the status
of the experimental devices that support the SSP, describes how each experiment is
supposed to work, and identifies the problems that have been encountered. SSP was
developed because of concerns that over time a nuclear weapon's reliability could
decline.

"All of the expensive SSP experiments were initiated because of the cessation of
nuclear testing, with the expectation that they would be essential to maintaining
the nuclear stockpile," said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of strategic security at
the Federation of American Scientists. "We understand nuclear weapons much better
now than we did when we were testing. It is time to reevaluate which of these
expensive experiments we still need. The DOE is even proposing to move away from
stockpile stewardship to a reliable, replacement warhead, which could avoid the need
for the SSP experiments altogether."

How essential is it for these megaprojects to continue?

The SSP supports three projects: the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to use laser
beams to compress a hydrogen target to densities and pressures where fusion would
occur; the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) Facility uses x-rays to
follow the shape of sections of plutonium when they are compressed as they would be
in the primary; and the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI)-renamed
Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) - to build supercomputers and associated
software to use the information from other experiments to model nuclear warheads and
predict their behavior.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) should have been finished four years ago and
was originally budgeted at just over one billion dollars. Now its first experiments
are expected to occur in 2010 to a cost of more than another billion dollars to
complete - greater than the original estimates of total cost.

"Based on unclassified sources, it appears that the connection between NIF and the
current SSP is at best indirect," said Oelrich. "We believe that NIF could be ended
without reducing the confidence in the existing nuclear stockpile."

Being able to model a nuclear weapon on a computer is one of the critical
substitutes for nuclear testing. Although the Advanced Simulation and Computing
(ASC) program has already made important contributions to understanding the behavior
of nuclear weapons, it too has been plagued with problems. It is not at all clear
when the ASC program will be "done." Construction on some computers was started but
never completed while some computers suffered from low reliability because of their
complexity. In many cases, Herculean hardware developments were not matched by
development of software that could fully exploit the capabilities of these new
machines. Even successes were short lived - the world's fastest computer today will
be overtaken by some rival within months.

All of the SSP experiments, but NIF in particular, are promoted as a means to
attract top new scientific talent to DOE and the SSP. Universities and industry are
now at the cutting edge of scientific and technical advance. Even if NIF did
contribute to this goal to some degree, it is far from being the most efficient
means of applying those billions of dollars. Those funds could go directly to
support university research of interest to DOE or to create smaller but
scientifically more interesting experiments within the labs.

"Even without NIF, the United States can maintain its existing nuclear weapons
without a return to testing," said Oelrich.


NOTE TO REPORTERS - For a copy of the report, please go to http://fas.org/2007/nuke/.

To schedule an interview with Ivan Oelrich of FAS, please contact Monica Amarelo at
email mamarelo@fas.org or call 202-454-4680.

# # #

The Federation of American Scientists was formed in 1945 by atomic scientists from
the Manhattan Project. Endorsed by 68 Nobel Laureates in biology, chemistry,
economics, medicine and physics as sponsors, the federation has addressed a broad
spectrum of national security issues in carrying out its mission to promote
humanitarian uses of science and technology. Today, FAS continues to achieve results
in strategic security with research and education projects in nuclear arms control
and global security; conventional arms transfers; proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction; information technology for human health; and government information
policy. For more information, go to http://www.fas.org.



Web Site = http://www.fas.org

Contact Details = Federation of American Scientists
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Washington, DC 20036
TEL: 202-546-3300
www.fas.org