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DEDICATED TO OUR MISSION
Stockpile Stewardship
What exactly does stockpile stewardship mean? For Los
Alamos, it means that every year the Laboratory must assure
that the nuclear weapons in the nation's stockpile are safe and reliable.
In other words, Los Alamos must "guarantee" that the weapons
will function as they were designed to, even though the stockpile is
older and some of the weapons have replacement components.
Finding Problems...
In order to provide this guarantee, scientists and engineers examine
samples of each weapon type in the stockpile to see what changes might
have occurred. They use non-nuclear experiments, laboratory tests and
computer simulations to assess the meaning of any changes.
...And Fixing Them
The very difficult aspect of accomplishing this mission is that the
Laboratory must rely on its experimental and modeling & simulation
capabilities——it cannot resort to conducting an actual
nuclear test like those used during the development of the weapons.
Since October 1992, the United States has observed a moratorium
on all nuclear testing.
Without
the ability to test, Laboratory scientists are relying more and more
on non-nuclear experiments and on bigger and faster computers and
improved computer models to assess changes to weapons in the stockpile.
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STEWARDSHIP MISSION
Managed by the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, the stewardship mission involves all the nuclear weapons laboratories
and plants nationwide.
Most of the weapons systems in the stockpile were designed at Los Alamos, so scientists and engineers here are involved in virtually
every aspect of stockpile stewardship.
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