Download or read book The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program written by Jonathan Medalia and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report discusses program to maintain nuclear warheads, a Life Extension Program (LEP), part of a larger Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP).
Download or read book Reliable Replacement Warhead Program written by Jonathan Medalia and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011-04 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most current U.S. nuclear warheads were built in the 1970s and 1980s and are being retained longer than was planned. Yet they deteriorate and must be maintained. To correct problems, a Life Extension Program (LEP) replaces components. Modifying some components would require a nuclear test, but the U.S. has observed a test moratorium since 1992. The NNSA and the DoE, would develop the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). Contents of this report (1) Need to Maintain Nuclear Warheads for the Long Term; The Solution So Far: Is LEP Satisfactory for the Long Term?; RRW and the Transformation of Nuclear Warheads; (2) RRW Program Developments; (3) Congressional Action; (4) Chronology, 2007-. A print on demand report.
Download or read book The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program Background and Current Developments written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most current U.S. nuclear warheads were built in the 1970s and 1980s and are being retained longer than was planned. Yet they deteriorate and must be maintained. To correct problems, a Life Extension Program (LEP), part of a larger Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), replaces components. Modifying some components would require a nuclear test, but the United States has observed a test moratorium since 1992. Congress and the Administration prefer to avoid a return to testing, so LEP rebuilds these components as closely as possible to original specifications. With this approach, the Secretaries of Defense and Energy have certified stockpile safety and reliability for the past 12 years without nuclear testing. NNSA argues it will become harder to certify current warheads with LEP because small changes may undermine confidence in warheads, perhaps leading to nuclear testing, whereas new-design replacement warheads created by the RRW program will be easier to certify without testing. Critics believe LEP and SSP can maintain the stockpile indefinitely. They worry that untested RRWs may make testing more likely and question cost savings, given high investment cost. They note that there are no military requirements for new weapons. Others feel that neither LEP nor RRW can provide high confidence over the long term, and would resume testing. Another point of view is that either LEP or RRW will work without nuclear testing. This report provides background and tracks legislation. It will be updated to reflect final FY2010 congressional action on RRW. See also CRS Report RL33748, Nuclear Warheads: The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program and the Life Extension Program, by Jonathan Medalia, which compares these two programs in detail.
Download or read book Nuclear Weapons The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most current U.S. nuclear warheads were built in the 1980s and are being retained longer than was planned. Yet warheads deteriorate and must be maintained. The current approach monitors them for signs of aging. When problems are found a Life Extension Program (LEP) rebuilds and replaces components. Modifying some critical components would require a nuclear test, but a nuclear test moratorium is in effect. Therefore, LEP rebuilds these components as closely as possible to original specifications. Using this approach, the Secretaries of Defense and Energy have certified stockpile safety and reliability for the past nine years without nuclear testing.
Download or read book Nuclear Weapons written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nuclear Warheads written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current U.S. nuclear warheads were deployed during the Cold War. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) maintains them with a Life Extension Program (LEP). NNSA questions if LEP can maintain them indefinitely on grounds that an accretion of minor changes introduced in replacement components will inevitably reduce confidence in warhead safety and reliability over the long term. Congress mandated the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program in 2004 "to improve the reliability, longevity, and certifiability of existing weapons and their components." Since then, Congress has specified more goals for the program, such as increasing safety, reducing the need for nuclear testing, designing for ease of manufacture, and reducing cost. RRW has become the principle program for designing new warheads to replace current ones.
Download or read book Nuclear Warheads written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current U.S. nuclear warheads were deployed during the Cold War. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) maintains them with a Life Extension Program (LEP). NNSA questions if LEP can maintain them indefinitely on grounds that an accretion of minor changes introduced in replacement components will inevitably reduce confidence in warhead safety and reliability over the long term. Congress mandated the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program in 2004 "to improve the reliability, longevity, and certifiability of existing weapons and their components." Since then, Congress has specified more goals for the program, such as increasing safety, reducing the need for nuclear testing, designing for ease of manufacture, and reducing cost. RRW has become the principal program for designing new warheads to replace current ones. The program's first step is a design competition. The winning design was selected in March 2007. If the program continues, NNSA would advance the design, assess technical feasibility, and estimate cost and schedule in FY2008; start engineering development by FY2010; and produce the first deployable RRW in FY2012. Each year, Congress would decide whether to fund the program as requested, modify it, or cancel it, and whether to continue or halt LEP. RRW's supporters argue that the competing designs meet all goals set by Congress. For example, they claim that certain design features will provide high confidence, without nuclear testing, that RRWs will work. Some critics respond that LEP should work indefinitely and question if RRW will succeed. They hold that LEP meets almost all goals set by Congress, and point to other LEP advantages. Others maintain that the scientific tools used to create RRW designs have not been directly validated by nuclear tests, and that the accretion of changes resulting from LEP makes the link of current warheads to the original tested designs increasingly tenuous. In this view, nuclear testing offers the only way to maintain confidence in the stockpile. RRW raises other issues for Congress: Is RRW likely to cost more or less than LEP? How much safety, and how much protection against unauthorized use, are enough? Should the nuclear weapons complex be reconfigured to support RRW? And what information does Congress need to choose among the alternatives? This report is intended for Members and staff interested in U.S. nuclear weapon programs. It will be updated occasionally. See CRS Report RL32929, The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program: Background and Current Developments, by Jonathan Medalia, for background and for tracking legislation and developments related to RRW.
Download or read book The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program written by Jonathan Medalia and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report describes the Life Extension Program (LEP), difficulties ascribed to it by its critics, and their responses; shows how changed post-Cold War constraints might open opportunities to improve long-term warhead maintenance and reach other goals; describes the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) and its pros and cons; tracks RRW program developments and congressional action on budget requests; and presents options and issues for Congress.
Download or read book Reliable Replacement Warhead Program written by United States. National Nuclear Security Administration and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Congress s Critical Role in the Reliable Replacement Warhead RRW Program written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Post-Cold War security requires a new nuclear weapons policy, operational doctrine, arsenal, and infrastructure. Congress needs to accelerate the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, require a design that is accurate and effective against both hardened and mobile targets, and ensure that the RRW program is not limited by inadequate funding or unnecessary constraints on testing.
Download or read book Workshop Report written by Constance M. Bertka and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Omnibus Eliminates Funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Creating a new nuclear warhead is essential for the security of the United States and its friends and allies.
Download or read book Reliable Replace Warhead Executive Summary written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NNSA tasked JASON to conduct a technical review of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), with a focus on the LLNL/Sandia design, now calledWR1. This report summarizes our ndings and recommendations. The design of a new warhead, without new nuclear explosive tests, relies on the scienti c connections and traceability of that design to (1) the legacy nuclear explosive test data, (2) established physics, and (3) new and ongoing experiments. The WR1 design is pursued with these principles in mind, but certi cation is not yet assured. The certi cation plan presented needs further development. For example, additional experiments and analyses are needed that explore failure modes, and assess the impact on performance of new manufacturing processes. Substantial work remains on the physical understanding of the surety mechanisms that are of high priority to the RRW program. Establishing that the case for con dence in any RRW has been satisfactorily made will require a new peer review process. In addition to certi cation issues, it is too early to assess how the WR1 will impact the modernization and streamlining of NNSA s production complex.
Download or read book Nuclear Weapons Annual Assessment of the Safety Performance Reliability of the Nation s Stockpile written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nuclear Weapons Enterprise Transformation A Sustainable Approach written by K. H. O'Brien and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 3 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear weapons play an essential role in United States (U.S.) National Security Policy and a succession of official reviews has concluded that nuclear weapons will continue to have a role for the foreseeable future. Under the evolving U.S. government policy, it is clear that role will be quite different from what it was during the Cold War. The nuclear-weapons stockpile as well as the nuclear-weapons enterprise needs to continue to change to reflect this evolving role. Stockpile reductions in the early 1990s and the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), established after the cessation of nuclear testing in 1992, began this process of change. Further evolution is needed to address changing security environments, to enable further reductions in the number of stockpiled weapons, and to create a nuclear enterprise that is cost effective and sustainable for the long term. The SSP has successfully maintained the U.S. nuclear stockpile for more than a decade, since the end of nuclear testing. Current plans foresee maintaining warheads produced in the 1980s until about 2040. These warheads continue to age and they are expensive to refurbish. The current Life Extension Program plans for these legacy warheads are straining both the nuclear-weapons production and certification infrastructure making it difficult to respond rapidly to problems or changes in requirements. Furthermore, refurbishing and preserving Cold-War-era nuclear weapons requires refurbishing and preserving an infrastructure geared to support old technology. Stockpile Stewardship could continue this refurbishment approach, but an alternative approach could be considered that is more focused on sustainable technologies, and developing a more responsive nuclear weapons infrastructure. Guided by what we have learned from SSP during the last decade, the stewardship program can be evolved to address this increasing challenge using its computational and experimental tools and capabilities. This approach must start with an improved vision of the future stockpile and enterprise, and find a path that moves us toward that future. The goal of this approach is to achieve a more affordable, sustainable, and responsive enterprise. In order to transform the enterprise in this way, the SSP warhead designs that drive the enterprise must change. Designs that emphasize manufacturability, certifiability, and increased safety and security can enable enterprise transformation. It is anticipated that such warheads can be certified and sustained with high confidence without nuclear testing. The SSP provides the tools to provide such designs, and can develop replacement designs and produce them for the stockpile. The Cold War currency of optimizing warhead yield-to-weight can be replaced by SSP designs optimizing margin-to-uncertainty. The immediate challenge facing the nuclear weapons enterprise is to find a credible path that leads to this vision of the future stockpile and enterprise. Reliable warheads within a sustainable enterprise can best be achieved by shifting from a program of legacy-warhead refurbishment to one of warhead replacement. The nuclear weapons stockpile and the nuclear weapons enterprise must transform together to achieve this vision. The current Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program represents an approach that can begin this process of transformation. If the RRW program succeeds, the designs, manufacturing complex, and certification strategy can evolve together and in so doing come up with a more cost-efficient solution that meets today's and tomorrow's national security requirements.
Download or read book National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July 2007, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, we issued a statement that summarized the need for maintaining a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent and urged bipartisan Congressional support for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. This paper, National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century, expands on the July 2007 statement by addressing in greater detail the considerations behind U.S. requirements for nuclear weapons. The paper also describes the relationship among strategic nuclear force structure, the stockpile of nuclear warheads, and the nuclear warhead research and production infrastructure. We believe the logic presented here provides a sound basis on which this and future administrations can consider further adjustments to U.S. nuclear weapons policy, strategy, and force structure.
Download or read book Nuclear Weapons NNSA Needs to Refine and More Effectively Manage its New Approach for Assessing Certifying Nuclear Weapons written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
