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by Daniel_Newby 5079 days ago
That may be the goal they sold to Washington, D.C., but the real goal was to develop high power laser technology. "Nuclear stockpile stewardship" was just a way to keep the tokamak politicians from killing the project out of spite.
1 comments
jessriedel 5079 days ago
Where do you get this impression? I'm a grad student at Los Alamos National Lab, a partner of Lawrence Livermore and a major contributor to NIF. I don't do nuclear physics, but I've attended a couple talks on NIF and spoken to several of the contributing physicist. The impression I get is that the number one purpose of the NIF is stockpile stewardship. Fusion energy research is a side project which is highlighted mostly for public relations.

In particular, I never hear anyone talk about the laser technology in anything but instrumental terms. (Instrumental to understanding the nuclear physics.)

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Daniel_Newby 5079 days ago
They'll spend at least $5 billion on the project. That is enough money to completely remanufacture the entire arsenal several times using existing designs that are good enough.

They have been working on laser fusion since the 1970s, when they could test bomb designs by just setting them off. Indeed some of the early inertial confinement research was conducted using nukes as the radiation source.

Yes, it is true that the NIF data can be used to design and maintain bombs, but it is not required. We could provide a deterrent force without it. Therefore the real reasons are something else, my guess a combination of laser research, commercial and rocketry fusion research, and a large serving of national prestige.

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jessriedel 5079 days ago
> They'll spend at least $5 billion on the project.

That's stretched well over a decade. The US's stockpile stewardship program cost billions per year; only a fraction of it goes to the NIF.

> That is enough money to completely remanufacture the entire arsenal several times using existing designs that are good enough.

That's not an option. The US has been sticking to a policy of not building new nuclear warheads. All of our warheads are at least 20 years old.

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