https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-weapons-tests-comeback-threats.
Calls to restart nuclear weapons tests stir dismay and debate among scientists
A U.S. return to underground detonations would have wide-ranging implications
Some see the ability to test as a necessity for a world in which nuclear weapons are a rising threat. “We are seeing an environment in which the autocrats are increasingly relying on nuclear weapons to threaten and coerce their adversaries,” says Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “If you’re in an acute crisis or conflict in which your adversary is threatening to employ nuclear weapons, you don’t want to limit the options of the president to get you out of that crisis.” Testing, and the signal it sends to an adversary, he argues, should be such an option.
23 comments:
Anyone who has ever designed and engineered a complex system knows that testing is absolutely essential. The notion that you can test some of the individual components through a combination of experiments and simulations and confidently confirm the function of a complex system is pure political hogwash. It gets even worse as components age out and are replaced by new designs with new materials. It's impossible to determine the result of every complex interaction, let alone what those interactions even are. This is like Boeing designing a new jet and putting it into service without any flight testing. Moreover, the testing moratorium has failed to prevent other nations from developing nukes. It's a politically expedient policy that has long since outlived it's usefulness.
But with LANL and LLNL will be turning into AI labs we will not need to test. We will have a ChatGPU just for the labs. If there is any issue we will just ask it questions and there will be no beed to test. In fact we can will not have to worry about who we hire either since the new AI labs will fundamentally change the way we do science and shift to the expertise to the AI which can do it better and faster.
With all of the risk averse culture and "improved" safety protocols, could we actually do a test these days? Did we do a good job of documenting how to do it since all of the expertise in that area has either retired or expired.
2:10 -- Boeing jets do have successful maiden flights. In fact so did the Space Shuttle and the Soviet shuttle "Buran", the moon landing, etc. Also there are other complex projects like the Webb space telescope, or the Titan lander.
It is both unnecessary and impossible.
It is both unnecessary and impossible.
4/12/2025 7:22 PM
AI can do simulated testing far better than a real test ever could. It is good thing that the labs are now AI labs. The world of science completely changed in 2022, it is completely it is unrecognizable now. All money should now be shifted to to large language models in AI. All of it. That will make the Chinese and Russian the most fearful.
When LLNL signed the contract with IBM which started the ASCI project, I asked one of the pioneers of big computing at the Lab what he thought of the Stockpile Stewardship Teraflop (SST). He told me he didn't trust it. He then told me of a design that was successfully tested and then in the following year, that same design was tested again and was a fizzle. It turned out that a vendor supplying a component had changed it's chemical composition without informing the lab. That is something that simulation, even with the highly touted AI wont reveal. In sports they look at the roster of a team and predict who should win, but you still have to play the game.
But AI will change everything
The safety culture is just a response to the post-Cold War environment of having no actual mission or purpose. Lab management is very adept at following the money. Once NNSA makes it clear what they need to do to get their award fee, safety culture will be quickly dropped and the management will turn on a dime. It's already happening with efficiency efforts, where before the motive was to be as inefficient as possible.
My gosh, you are so smart. I never realized that. I guess the possibility of one successful first test proves that no testing is ever required, right?
One might suppose that our adversaries would also test if we did, and the increased confidence in the weapons on all sides might make their use more likely.
The entire premise of the SSP is that testing is unnecessary. Well, if that's true, than other countries shouldn't care whether the US tests or not because testing gains us nothing. You can't have it both ways. Either the SSP is a fraud and testing is necessary or the SSP has been successful and therefore resumed testing is a non-event.
"2:10 -- Boeing jets do have successful maiden flights. In fact so did the Space Shuttle and the Soviet shuttle "Buran", the moon landing, etc. Also there are other complex projects like the Webb space telescope, or the Titan lander."
So you cheery pick some missions that worked the first time. How about all the others that did not. Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, Deep space 2, Genesis mission, Boeing Star Liner, Starship and just recently the Athena moon lander. You can a rather list of failures.
6:07 You're ignoring the fact that there are different degrees of belief, which is a flaw in trying to formulate a binary or logical argument.
6:41 -- yes, I agree with you somewhat. The space shuttle had a failure rate, and of the Apollo missions, there was an issue with Apollo 13 where the astronauts survived but the mission objectives were not met. And while the Webb succeeded, the Hubble required repair before working properly. The titan lander also had an issue with the doppler shift of the transmissions which required a change to the original plan. It is also known that for the shuttle NASA worked backwards from some arbitrary 1 in 10000 failure rate while a 2% failure rate which held true in actuality, would have arguably been more justified. This is why I mentioned above, that in the case of a complex system it might make sense to think in terms of a degree of certainty, whether you wish you quantify or not, that it will meet its objectives.
Again with AI I think everything changes. We can make a science ChatGPU and and ask it about possible modes of failure and it will know the answers. AI has already completely changed the world and transform the NNSA complex beyond our wildest dreams. The dangers of not testing will no longer matter, safety will improve, pits will be built, and the work force will change. I know some people at the labs do not this it must be on "on the hill problem isolation problem" but I hear about AI everyday and how it is changing all of of the world.
Is this ironic? I hope so.
In today’s safety regulatory environment I honestly don’t know if we can even conduct this kind of testing anymore. Just look at how long it took to restart pit production. DOE even sold the cranes needed to get the test package underground. The canister load test facility has been scrapped. The good thing is we have a hole waiting for a test out at the site, but to make another large diameter and more importantly straight hole would require recreating this technology and expertise… most of that knowledge from the 70’s has gone to the grave sadly. Remember most of the engineering staff now were born after the Divider event.
By the way there is a quantum mechanical "thought experiment" whereby according to the many-worlds theory, a certain type of "bomb" can hypothetically be tested by having it go off, much of the time, in some other world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur%E2%80%93Vaidman_bomb_tester
This is known as an "interaction free measurement":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction-free_measurement
Again you do not seem to understand that world changed with invention of AI and ChatGP. In short while it will be so advanced that we can simply ask it for virtual test and odds of working and it will do that far better than any humans can. AI is changing everything right now. The concerns you have will simply not be an issue.
One pit every twenty years is hardly “restart of pit production”.
Let us hope our adversaries think as you do.
"Let us hope our adversaries think as you do."
Oh they do and that is why we need to stay ahead of China in terms of AI. Make no mistake the nation that controls AI controls the world because yeas AI is changing everything.
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