Science 1663

The Mission-Science Tapestry

From Terry Wallace

The stated mission of Los Alamos National Laboratory is national-security science, which means the Laboratory must provide science-based solutions to difficult national problems. That mission is inherently driven by applied science, so questions inevitably arise about how basic and discovery science (fundamental science) fit in at the Lab. The fact is that the Laboratory must excel in many areas of fundamental science if it is to continue to fuel the applied-science engine. Mission and fundamental science are intricately woven together at the Laboratory and always have been.

Examples of that complex interweaving abound; they can be found in every article in this issue of 1663. One of the best examples, however, stems from the Laboratory's long-standing mission to help monitor and assess other nations' nuclear weapons programs.

In the late 1950s the United States launched Project Vela to monitor nuclear testing. The project initially had three parts: Vela Uniform for monitoring underground testing, Vela Sierra for detecting atmospheric tests, and Vela Hotel for detecting nuclear tests from space.

Between 1960 and 1963, Vela Uniform received funding of $110.7 million, 30 percent of which was earmarked for basic research. Much of the remaining 70 percent went into developing a worldwide system of standardized seismic stations that could detect all but the smallest underground nuclear tests.

Within a few short years, tremendous quantities of data were flowing from those stations to the seismology community, and in classic discovery-science fashion, this body of data led to the development of the modern theory of plate tectonics. The theory revolutionized our understanding of how the Earth works, and between 1965 and 1980, scientists learned the vast majority of what is currently known about the Earth's internal nature. In turn, this knowledge benefited the Laboratory's mission by allowing the United States to develop methods for detecting and identifying—anywhere on the globe—small nuclear explosions, with yields as low as one kiloton. Mission drove science, which led to discovery, which fed back into mission—a perfect weave.

The key to managing science at Los Alamos lies in anticipating the mission's needs and ensuring the development of strategic capabilities. Today the nation faces an evolving set of threats to its environment and to its energy and information systems, threats that endanger national security. By investing in basic and discovery science and managing them properly, we can address those evolving threats and continue to fulfill our national-security mission.