Some strange things are going on at LANL as whole ares of the lab have been suddenly shut down to non-US citizens. Could be corona virus could be something else. Other rumors are things have not gone well for TRIAD the first year and the hammer is or will soon be coming down on LANL. Something very odd is going on.
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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I think there has just been some screwups right off the bat and and NNSA wants to get this fixed soon since they will look bad for picking TRIAD if things continue to with the usual incidents.
2/22/2020 9:28 PM
I think this is right, with increased production two things need to happen (1) More and better security for obvious reasons. (2) Less screw ups. If NNSA is going to invest in the Los Alamos production facility than they better be able to handle the work. So in short yes growing pains. Take that for what you will but it also means the whole culture of LANL will be shifting to that of a production facility and away from science or even engineering. Rocky Flats was never science institute. Another issue is that the risk is going to increase in at LANL, again look at what happened at Rocky Flats, it is the nature of production. All priorities, rules, policies, and culture are going to shift to production as that where the money and all the new hires are going to be. I simply do not see how science is going to continue at LANL when LANL becomes a production plant, however it could mean that the science missions at LLNL and Sandia will increase as old LANL work gets transferred, so if you young and pretty good transferring to one of these labs will not be that big of a deal. Hey times change, LANL has been changing for the last 20 years it just more serious changes in the next 5-10 years. Something to think about.
The glass is always half empty with you science people. Look, MESA at Sandia has been a 24/7, billion dollar production facility for many decades and the science has been better funded as a result. I guess you don't know that science is funded mostly by LDRD which is basically generated by a tax on production work. More production * 0.05 = more science. It's not hard.
2/23/2020 6:59 PM
I agree this is the current paradigm but when mission shifts, paradigms change. NNSA is not going to allow you to tax production (or capital projects) for science if they do not want science at LANL anymore.
2/23/2020 6:59 PM"
I understand your point but LDRD is already shifting toward just programmatic work so I expect this will become even more so
with the production facility. Also there may be chance they will simply do away with LDRD or change it to something else.
Many people at LANL are saying the same thing. It seems like there is very little support for science, even Mason said "science will take care of itself". I am realistic it just makes sense in terms of effeteness and econmocs that the as LANL becomes a production faculty that that science will not longer be priority and the science that the NNSA need can be moved elsewhere. Besides the 5% that live off LDRD everyone either hates it or at best does not care. I simply do not see LDRD continuing at LANL in long term.
2/24/2020 5:15 PM
So how has science been doing at LANL lately and where do you see it going the future? Please inform us since you seem to know so much.
5:34 PM
How do you conclude the person is an "anti-science guy". Looks like someone who is pointing out possible issues with science at LANL. No where does the poster state LANL should not be doing science or expressed any anti science statements . Your argument goes like this:
Poster: Science has been declining at LANL.
You: You are an anti-science guy!
One does no follow from the other, do you see how this works.
Now maybe you don't know or care about science at LLNL or LANL which is fine, but if you do one of the first questions you can ask is: Is science declining or not? Other questions could be: should it decline, or why is it declining.
2/26/2020 5:35 PM
Are you going to reply to the 8:10 PM post?
2/27/2020 5:07 PM
You did not reply this this poster nor have you ever replied to any of the other points. Just admit you have nothing.
I am not saying your narrative is not true but I am saying that it is irrelevant. Weapons and science are not considered to be problems at LANL right now. Sure that may not be doing very well but the big issues at LANL are operations and preparing for pit production. I have to agree that that LANL is increasingly second rate in terms of science as the 1st rate people have all been leaving for the past 25 years. Now one cam make an argument that LANL does not need 1st rate science, I disagree with this but I can understand how doing 1st rate science does not get you much at the labs. It is now safety and security. In other words the labs are now about things going wrong. Sure if you had some major break though in shock wave science etc it would be very valuable to the lab mission science and science in general but the yearly score for science is always going to be 90-95% no matter. There is simply no feedback mechanism to encourage 1st rate versus 2nd or 3rd since the score is always 90%. Now just have one screwup where somebody gets contaminated or loses something then they aredinged. You can see where the priorities are with such system. In the old days of testing you had a natural feedback to encourage 1st rate work. During the cold war the results where what mattered. Now it is the screwups that matter.