Where does the U.S. make nuclear weapons?

Answer 1

The "making" or manufacturing of nuclear weapons as such (or, rather, the program for production of new weapons) has been shut down for a long time - since the early 1990's. What we now have is two nuclear weapons laboratories that face the daunting task of "updating" the U.S. nuclear arsenal. All this is done under the administration of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Let's look at the two places where the "big boom" work continues, and some "connected" spots, as well as other aspects that impinge on budgeting and expectations as regards nuclear weapons.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) at Los Alamos, New Mexico has long been at the point of nuclear weapons development. Back in the day when the U.S. first build the bomb (the Mathattan Project), Oak Ridge (Tennessee) enriched the uranium, Hanford (Washington state) ran three production reactors (to make plutonium), and LANL put the thing together and tested it. Oppenheimer and the gang worked out of the latter location developing the design, engineering it up and making it go Boom! Today, LANL has a staff of Ph.D. folks whose work is top hush and is worth millions on the black market. Is there a university-level course at your local community college in nuclear weapons design? No? Don't be surprised. The knowledge is dear, and we all know of some of the incidents associated with "spies" and "leaks" and other espionage and security activities that are designed to pry loose information or seal shut "cracks" in the wall shutting in knowledge of the work.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California is a "spin off" from LANL that Robert Oppenheimer helped set up. It provided a second place to design and development nuclear weapons. There were early links to the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley because Edward Teller and Nobel Lauriate Ernest O. Lawrence, director of the UC Berkeley lab, are regarded as the co-founders of Livermore Laboratory. (After all, it's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, isn't it? Mmhmm.) The early work at Lawrence Livermore resulted in a number of "duds" when test time came. But they finally got a working weapon out and became "official" as far as credible weapons designers.

Let's get serious. When it comes to nucs, it's all about the size and shape of the nuclear material and what we decide to do as regards 1) the way we set it off 2) the box we put it in and 3) the safety features we incorporate so a broken arrow won't vaporize a little town like, say, Palomares, Spain. The United States built some 70,000 nuclear weapons over the years since they were first made. Today we have maybe 5,000 nucs. Lots of nucs have been torn down and their fissile material carted off and stored in various locations where secure nuclear holding areas exist. Who took them apart? And who tends the Operational and Active Stockpile weapons?

Pantex, the only "maintenance" site for the nuclear arsenal, is near Amarillo, Texas. They are the sole facility green-lighted to assemble and disassemble nuclear weapons. It is there that all the maintenance is pulled on the nucs. Things are tight there. Lots of people with automatic weapons who shoot first and ask questions later. Operational weapons and Active Stockpile units are cycled through the facility regularly. There are a number of weapons that are carried on the inactive Reserve Schedule that Pantex never sees. These nucs are stashed in various secure locations around the country. Some Active Stockpile weapons are actually located overseas, but the U.S. (usually) neither confirms or denies their presence in any location. And we're increasingly pulling them and returning them home for disposition.

But what abut the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal? We can "run what we got" here. Heck, we're doing that. But we're still consolidating across the board as regards a leaner, more advanced and increasingly effective military. New, "joint agency" weapons and such. New nuclear designs, too, but why? No new nucs have been tested for decades. There are test bans in place (like the NPT). And no one wants to field an untested weapon. Designs without testing are just "tinkering" with the weapons. But we'd like a "newer, bigger, better, faster blaster" (actually smaller, safer, more secure and less expensive weapon) which we can use to support diplomacy. A new nuclear weapon design - the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). Where's it going to come from? LANL or LLNL will design it - or it will probably be a joint project. They're already working on it. Then we'll have to figure out how to test it. The program to do this is tagged Complex Transformation. And it's complex all right. It gets thorny. The show stopper is the test ban. Why revamp and rebuild facilities (which Department of Energy administrators are requesting financing for) and go to the trouble of designing and building a new nuclear weapon if there is currently no foreseeable way to test it?

We're not making nucs anymore, per se. We're tuning the old ones up to keep them functional, and tinkering with new ideas. Congress has mandated that the new President (whoever it may be) take a long, hard look at the state of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. And then figure out what marching orders to give the National Nuclear Security Administration as regards which way to go with America's nuclear weapons.

Did the answer nuc this question? Overkill it? Perhaps. But in the best tradition of WikiAnswers, we're hooking you up with some links. They're to related Wikipedia articles. Thanks for stopping by.

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