If You Need Me, I'll Be In The Angry Dome
This was a conventional story of the decay of the nuclear arsenal and infrastructure, with the succession planning highlights I've written about before but am too lazy to find at the moment, that had me sighing with resignation and "Yup" until I hit the quote from Mr. Kristensen.
I took the moment to look up his CV. After doing so, I find it difficult to accept his credibility especially in light that his retort did not address the decay. Yes, we are making better missiles but missiles are just a delivery system completely separate from the bomb itself. An artful dodge but:
A nuclear weapon needs three things: the delivery system, a device (the explosives and fiddly bits), and the actual fissile material. Part one is doing as great as Lockheed is in general. The infrastructure, knowledge and skill base, and the existing specimens of parts two and three are what aren't doing so well. Some of that is due to woeful mismanagement by private contractors who run the nuclear complex for the government these days but mostly its just a lack of money and interest for the last 20 years. The only reason LLNL survived the 1980s is that all those incidental side projects researchers used to do in order to keep their minds fresh while working on the weapons program turned into whole directorates in their own right.
That reminds me, looking at his CV, I didn't see any time working at any of the national labs or weapons plants. Greenpeace is not really a substitute. It also makes it kind of unlikely he'd be given the opportunity to tour these places, especially the parts that are in the most trouble.
I took the moment to look up his CV. After doing so, I find it difficult to accept his credibility especially in light that his retort did not address the decay. Yes, we are making better missiles but missiles are just a delivery system completely separate from the bomb itself. An artful dodge but:
A nuclear weapon needs three things: the delivery system, a device (the explosives and fiddly bits), and the actual fissile material. Part one is doing as great as Lockheed is in general. The infrastructure, knowledge and skill base, and the existing specimens of parts two and three are what aren't doing so well. Some of that is due to woeful mismanagement by private contractors who run the nuclear complex for the government these days but mostly its just a lack of money and interest for the last 20 years. The only reason LLNL survived the 1980s is that all those incidental side projects researchers used to do in order to keep their minds fresh while working on the weapons program turned into whole directorates in their own right.
That reminds me, looking at his CV, I didn't see any time working at any of the national labs or weapons plants. Greenpeace is not really a substitute. It also makes it kind of unlikely he'd be given the opportunity to tour these places, especially the parts that are in the most trouble.