Nuclear Stockpile Stewardship
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Nuclear Stockpile Stewardship
Stockpile stewardship refers to the United States program of reliability testing, viability, and the maintenance of its nuclear weapons without the use of nuclear testing. Because no new nuclear weapons have been developed by the United States since 1992, even its youngest weapons are at least years old (as of ). Aging weapons can fail or act unpredictably in a number of ways: the high explosives that compress their fissile material can chemically degrade, their electronic components can suffer from decay, their radioactive plutonium/uranium cores are potentially unreliable, and the isotopes used by thermonuclear weapons may be chemically unstable as well. Since the United States has also not tested nuclear weapons since 1992, this leaves the task of its stockpile maintenance resting on the use of simulations (using non-nuclear explosives tests and supercomputers, among other methods) and applications of scientific knowledge about physics and chemistry to the specific problems of ...
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National Ignition Facility
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, United States. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high fusion energy gain factor, energy gain. It achieved the first instance of scientific Fusion energy gain factor#Breakeven, breakeven controlled fusion in an experiment on December 5, 2022, with an energy gain factor of 1.5. It supports nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the equation of state, behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear explosions. NIF is the largest and most powerful ICF device built to date. The basic ICF concept is to squeeze a small amount of fuel to reach the pressure and temperature necessary for fusion. NIF hosts the world's most energetic laser, which indirectly heats the outer layer of a small sphere. The energy is so intense that it causes the sphere to implode, squeezing the ...
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Physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." It is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physics. (...) You will come to see physics as a towering achievement of ...
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Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a multilateral treaty to ban nuclear weapons test explosions and any other nuclear explosions, for both civilian and military purposes, in all environments. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 September 1996, but has not entered into force, as nine specific nations have not ratified the treaty. History Background The movement for international control of nuclear weapons began in 1945, with a call from Canada and the United Kingdom for a conference on the subject. In June 1946, Bernard Baruch, an emissary of President Harry S. Truman, proposed the Baruch Plan before the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, which called for an international system of controls on the production of atomic energy. The plan, which would serve as the basis for U.S. nuclear policy into the 1950s, was rejected by the Soviet Union as a US ploy to cement its nuclear dominance. Between the Trinity nuclear test of 16 Ju ...
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Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979 and as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton, whose policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy, became known as a New Democrats (United States), New Democrat. Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton graduated from Georgetown University in 1968, and later from Yale Law School, where he met his future wife, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham. After graduating from law school, Clinton returned to Arkansas and won election as state attorney general, followed by Governorships of Bill Clinton, two non-consecutive tenures as Arkansas governor. As governor, he overhauled the state's education system and served as Chai ...
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Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial support of Charles Scribner, as a printing press to serve the Princeton community in 1905. Its distinctive building was constructed in 1911 on William Street in Princeton. Its first book was a new 1912 edition of John Witherspoon's ''Lectures on Moral Philosophy.'' History Princeton University Press was founded in 1905 by a recent Princeton graduate, Whitney Darrow, with financial support from another Princetonian, Charles Scribner II. Darrow and Scribner purchased the equipment and assumed the operations of two already existing local publishers, that of the ''Princeton Alumni Weekly'' and the Princeton Press. The new press printed both local newspapers, university documents, '' The Daily Princetonian'', and later added book publishing ...
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Nuclear Weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission, fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion, fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. Nuclear bombs have had Nuclear weapon yield, yields between 10 tons (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). Yields in the low kilotons can devastate cities. A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than 1.2 megatons of TNT (5.0 Petajoule, PJ). Apart from the blast, Effects of nuclear explosions, effects of nuclear weapons include Firestorm, firestorms, extreme Thermal radiation, heat and ionizing radiation, radioactive nuclear fallout, an Nuclear electromagnetic pulse, electromagnetic pulse, and a radar blackout. The first nuclear weapons were deve ...
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United States Department Of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy-related research, and energy conservation. The DOE was created in 1977 in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis. It sponsors more physical science research than any other U.S. federal agency, the majority of which is conducted through its system of National Laboratories. The DOE also directs research in genomics, with the Human Genome Project originating from a DOE initiative. The department is headed by the secretary of energy, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the Cabinet. The current secretary of energy is Chris Wright, who has served in the position since February 2025. The department's headquarters are in sou ...
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Nevada Test Site
The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of the city of Las Vegas. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving Grounds of the United States Army, the site was acquired in 1951 to be the testing venue for the American nuclear devices. The first atmospheric test was conducted at the site's Frenchman Flat area by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) on January 27, 1951. About 928 nuclear tests were conducted here through 1994, when the United States stopped its underground nuclear testing. The site consists of about of desert and mountainous terrain. Some 1,100 buildings in 28 areas are connected by of paved roads, of unpaved roads, ten heliports, and two airstrips. The site is privately managed and operated by Mission Support and Test Services LLC, a joint venture of H ...
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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered privately by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response to the detonation of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb during the Cold War. It later became autonomous in 1971 and was designated a national laboratory in 1981. Lawrence Livermore Lab is primarily funded by the United States Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy and it is managed Privately held company, privately and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (a Public-private partnerships in the United States, partnership of the University of California, Bechtel, BW ...
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Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it has a second principal facility next to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, and a test facility in Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii. Sandia is owned by the U.S. federal government but privately managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International. Established in 1949, SNL is a "multimission laboratory" with the primary goal of advancing U.S. national security by developing various science-based technologies. Its work spans roughly 70 areas of activity, including nuclear deterrence, arms control, nonproliferation, hazardous waste disposal, and climate change. Sandia hosts a wide variety of research i ...
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Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States, American southwest. Best known for its central role in helping develop the First Atomic bomb, first atomic bomb, LANL is one of the world's largest and most advanced scientific institutions. Los Alamos was established in 1943 as Project Y, a top-secret site for designing nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project during World War II.The site was variously called Los Alamos Laboratory and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. Chosen for its remote yet relatively accessible location, it served as the main hub for conducting and coordinating nuclear research, bringing together some of the world's most famous scientists, among them numerous Nobel ...
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