Sunday, December 30, 2012
Should the Nuclear Weapons Complex be Broken up?
The real push back on moving nuclear weapons research and production work out of DOE to DOD has always come from the House and Senate congressional committees over the DOE (and its predecessor agencies). No one wants to give up such a large part of their territory to another committee. Also the committee prestige derived from overseeing the "crown jewels" national labs (LANL, LLNL, and SNL) and their combined Billion Dollar annual budgets.
I still think there's a change that some change may come out of this latest congressional mandated review of NNSA.
Everyone from the White House to Congress to the Lab Directors to the DOD customers recognizes that NNSA is broken. And as we've all read, even ex-NNSA leadership is saying its broken and not working the way Congress had intended. The only ones that remotely seem happy are the "for profit" contractor entities running the NNSA production sites, since they just have to follow NNSA orders without questioning them or pushing back, and if they do this they get their management fees. The NNSA science Labs on the other hand are full of relatively smart people raised/educated to question things and push boundaries.
A possible solution that the powerful Congressional Committees might buy off on... divide the NNSA mess into its key functions - research/science (LANL, LLNL), applied engineering (SNL), and testing/production (Pantex, KCP, Y-12, SRS, NTS).
Move testing/production to DOD (as an separate agency, similar to DARPA and NSA) and keep research/science in DOE (office of science, and have their nuclear weapons work done as "Work for Others").
Not sure about where to put SNL. I tend to lean towards DOD, since it seems to function and have more in common with the existing DOD applied research and engineering labs (ie, Lincoln Lab). It is also on an Air Force Base and seems to do a significant amount of WFO for DOD customers.
I'd really like to hear some thoughts on this approach? Pluses... minuses...
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19 comments:
SNL will not be any more anxious to join DoD than LANL/LLNL. The moment it became a DoD lab, questions would be asked why their cost structure is so different from say AFRL or ARL.
Don't know if it should be broken up, but it is most definitely already broken!
All elements with a common purpose should remain in one entity so that tradeoffs and handoffs can be managed by supervision that has a single purpose. That's the obvious part.
The less obvious part is how to unleash the ability of lab leadership while getting the right level of taxpayer oversight and accountability.
The worst part is the taxpayer is unprepared to pay the price of a modernized nuclear weapons complex, even it the capitalization is carried out over 20 years.
No. The worst part is that about half of the US is occupied by people who won't pay their way. They think that a Santa Claus can be conjured by the majority to take their personal productions shortcomings from others.
Lacking the selfdicipline to study, work and save, they will just take what they want from others.
Moochers all. Not to say there isn't a small needy group who through no fault of their own can't make it on their own and should have some support. Also this does not include those who have contributed to public programs for retirement or medical care, and when needed expect it to be provided. Rather, the moochers are those who don't try when effort is needed, in education, in working, in saving and then, "Oh my" find they are short, but still want a cellphone or HD TV.
Dump the moochers.
And then, to swell the hoi polloi's ire to take from others, wave the race or gender/gender bender flags, as if in some previous world, their own personal productive shortcomings were less important to their personel plight than some boogie-mans ethereal unkind zeitgeist.
Leave moochers to their own fate.
You're not speaking of a certain ganga-toking Hawaiian who has not worked a productive day in his affirmative action life, but now grasps for the fruits of others labor?
Naw, don't care who is grasping at my bank. Keep away.
I have an idea, lets take out a lot of debt, spend it proflgately and then dump it on children.
A kinda United States citizen version of a clerical rape.
Sad that the dumb comments have nothing to do with the original post and suggestions on NNSA. Just another example of the short attention span in this country.
We need to develop casinos on the moon. Also need to keep changing the subject when people say things that cast the lab in a bad light.
We need to develop casinos on the moon. Also need to keep changing the subject when people say things that cast the lab in a bad light.
December 31, 2012 12:07 PM
On the moon? Just turn the "bomb labs" into casinos or amusement theme parks. Use the NIF containment vessel for stunt motorcycle riders to ride bikes inside it.
Livermore Laserlight Casino Hotel.
No self-respecting superpower would call the NNSA's collective welfare system a, "nuclear weapons complex". No, these labs are something else entirely.
The main problem with the labs is that they don't know what they are anymore. Almost 50% of the labs has no connection to NW work, and instead lives on short term, year to year contracts to stay alive. In the process, we are competing for these contracts with lower priced, more efficient organizations like private enterprise and public/private universities. As a business model, it makes no real sense. Add to this the fact that the promotion system is based mostly on seniority and the Good Ol' Boys network, and the remote location of the labs, and the only people they seem to retain are the underachievers or the "retired in situ" types that are still on the old pension system.
The one bright spot is that the scientific job market has been so terrible for the past decade, especially since 2008, that there are hoards of desperate postdocs clamoring for any employment at all. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these young recruits will straight up refuse to work on any national security type work, and absolutely won't go into the NW area.
Couple this reality with the end of the pension, the end of generous benefits, the end of semi-stable funding, failure of major projects like NIF, the potentially improving economy, and you have a recipe for a serious mass exodus come ~2013-14.
Livermore Laserlight Casino Hotel.
January 1, 2013 8:18 AM
Livermore Laserlight Casino Hotel (LLC Ho)
You're not speaking of a certain ganga-toking Hawaiian who has not worked a productive day in his affirmative action life, but now grasps for the fruits of others labor?
Hey, John Boehner is from Ohio, he just looks like he lives the island lifestyle after all the time in the tanning bed. And he works hard taking the calls from Karl and the K Street gang.
As for the moocher thread, let's acknowledge that both parties have fallen all over themselves to promise things they have no idea how to pay for. There are moochers spread across the political spectrum.
While LANL has had alot of problems in recent years, they do some real work involving SNM and are also active in NTS activities, and so most LANL capabilities need to be retained.
Sandia seems to be doing fine, and has alot of different capabilities. You can split off Sandia NNSA from non-NNSA capabilities, but considering the relatively successful operations and relative lack of problems at that lab, there seems to be no drive or need to break up the various capabilities.
LLNL is probably in the worst position of all 3. having made the bad decision to back out of NTS experiments, and dropping or deprioritizing non-Lasers based experiments in favor of all-things-NIF. Since Sandia and LANL already have mature EoS and strength measurement capabilities, while LLNL has yet to begin building the technical capability for EoS (for example, they have yet to develop the ability to perform and analyze laser isentropic compression experiments). Many other non-laser capabilities are redundant. Computations, while successful, is commoditizable. High Explosives capabilities are redundant. Global security capabilities are redundant. Weapons code capabilities are redundant. LLNL QMU work is highly suspect.
The worst part is that about half of the US is occupied by people who won't pay their way.
It looks like Mitt is back with his 47% argument. the LLNL welfare program and it's recipients should be part of that equation. Getting 150-200k "salary" welfare benefits per year to turn knobs randomly on NIF hoping that the target will ignite.
For those calling for the labs to move under DOD, they may want to wait to see if Hagel becomes the secretary of same.
If Congress tries to throw the DOE/NNSA garbage over the fence to DOD, Hagel will throw it right back.
Adam Rowen (manager of the Materials Chemistry department) from Sandia National Laboratories does not have a Ph.D.
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