Times good for bomb designers
Scientists drawing up plans for new nuclear weapons with aim of replacing U.S. arsenal
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area

For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new hydrogen bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards.

If they succeed, in perhaps 20 or 25 more years, the United States would have an entirely new nuclear arsenal, and a highly automated factory capable of turning out more warheads as needed, as well as new kinds of warheads.

We are on the verge of an exciting time, the nations top nuclear weapons executive, Linton Brooks, said last week at Lawrence Livermore weapons design laboratory.

Teams of roughly 20 scientists and engineers at the nations two laboratories for nuclear-explosive design —

Livermore and Los Alamos in New Mexico — are in a head-to-head competition to offer designs for the first of the new thermonuclear explosives, termed reliable replacement warheads, or RRWs.

Designers are aiming for bombs that will be simpler, easier to maintain over decades and, if they fell into terrorists hands, able to be remotely destroyed or rendered as useless as a doorstop.

To read the full story, click here.