LLNL - The True Story -

  W80-5 “just came up,” will go on SLCM-N, weapons directors say By Sarah Salem Exchange Monitor January 28, 2026 ARLINGTON, VA – The W80-5, a new variant of the W80 warhead family, is on a “more aggressive schedule” to go on the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N), weapons directors said on the final day of Exchange Monitor’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit. Rita Gonzales, Deputy Laboratories Director for Nuclear Deterrence at Sandia National Laboratories, and Bradley Wallin, Deputy Director of Strategic Deterrence at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, both spoke on a panel about the new warhead the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is developing. “This one just came up and we’ve been working on it for less than a year at this point, but really looking at accelerating that program as well and looking at some creative ways where we might be able to deliver that capability to the Department of War earlier than antici...

 From an anonymous contributor: Is NIF falling behind more promising fusion technologies? In 2012, NIF failed to reach ignition and the “LIFE” program was mothballed. In 2026, NIF “still consumes significantly more energy than it produces, indicating that practical, commercial fusion power is still a long way”. TAE Technologies is doing aneutronic fusion research that may cost 10x LESS per GW than a post NIF fusion power plant, and do so with significantly reduced neutron radiation damage lowering reactor maintenance. If the NNSA brings back underground nuclear testing at NTS in 2026, will funding for NIF increase, decrease, or be unaffected?

Odds of another Government shutdown just went way up https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/us/democrats-congress-reaction.html The odds are like 75% now. This will be fun, so we go through the whole thing again?

  Our Nuclear Weapons Need a New Home by Franklin Miller & Frank Rose, Real Clear Defense, January 23, 2026 https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2026/01/23/our_nuclear_weapons_need_a_new_home_1160419.html "The Energy Department is the Wrong Place to Manage Our Nuclear Stockpile. Nuclear deterrence is once again central to U.S. national security. The relative calm of the post-Cold War world has been replaced by an era of dangerous competition with two nuclear armed adversaries. China is rapidly expanding and diversifying its nuclear forces. Russia is modernizing its strategic and non-strategic arsenal while integrating nuclear signaling into conventional operations. Emerging technologies—from cyber operations to artificial intelligence and space-based systems—are compressing decision timelines and increasing the risk of miscalculation. Yet the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise is organized for a different era. At precisely the moment when speed, accountability, and delivery ...

  With all the foreign national scientists at LLNL and LANL should we be worried about the ICE abusing their powers to intimidate people?

  From ARS TECHNICA: Is Orion’s heat shield really safe? https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasa-chief-reviews-orion-heat-shield-expresses-full-confidence-in-it-for-artemis-ii/

  Scientists at the labs better start worrying. You will soon have nothing to offer the labs. Nvidia’s CEO Just Dropped a Hard Truth: “Smart” Is About to Become Worthless. AI can generate everything. Only humans with discernment can decide what’s worth keeping. In other words all you "I am so smart scientists" are about to worthless since, brains, knowledge and skill will be free for all to use, at hundreds of times faster and better than what any scientist can do What will matter will be leadership and management skills who can than ask the AI what to do. They will not have to ask humans anymore.

  Does war with Venezuela change anything for the NNSA labs? Does China take Taiwan now?  Are we back to war with Iran? What about Cuba and Mexico?