February 08 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine
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Glenn Mara, Transforming the weapons enterprise
Glenn Mara stops by the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Replacement Project construction site. Photo: Sandra Valdez
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced in December its complexwide
preferred alternatives—changes to both work scope and infrastructure at all NNSA sites—that
will enable long-term transformation of the nation's nuclear weapons enterprise to one that is
smaller and more responsive to the security challenges facing the nation. We at Los Alamos will play a major role in this transformation,
with substantial responsibilities in nuclear weapons
design and engineering, supercomputing, plutonium research
and development, limited pit manufacturing, and continued
consolidation of nuclear facilities to a smaller and more
efficient footprint.
The preferred alternative selection reaffirms that Los Alamos
is first and foremost a national security scientific laboratory.
The selection supports continued interdisciplinary excellence
in theory, modeling, and simulation of high energy
density systems. It confirms and builds upon the Laboratory's
world-leading role in actinide sciences—the study of
elements from thorium to lawrencium—and acknowledges
our demonstrated success in pit manufacturing.
Los Alamos continues to be critical to stewardship and will
now take a lead role in complex transformation. "Because
our nuclear weapons stockpile is decreasing, the United
States' future deterrent cannot be based on the old Cold
War model of the number of weapons," noted NNSA
Administrator Tom D’Agostino in his rollout of the transformation
plan. "Rather, it must be based on the capability
to respond to any national security situation and make
weapons only if necessary."
We at Los Alamos are a keystone of this capability.
Through the success of stockpile stewardship, we can now
lay the groundwork for protecting our nation’s security well
into the future through agile application of our science and
engineering.
Properly executed, complex transformation is good for the
long-term viability of the Laboratory and the other NNSA sites. It is responsible stewardship
of taxpayer dollars that enhances scientific capability and safety and security and that can
further enable stockpile reductions.
In the final analysis, a smaller, more efficient and responsive nuclear weapons enterprise
results in cost savings, reductions in the stockpile, and leverage for our scientific and technical
expertise to meet the most important national security requirements. Ultimately, our
work becomes a more essential element of national security, and our success can help realize
the strategy of capability-based deterrence.
Glenn Mara, principal associate director for Nuclear Weapons Programs
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