NNSA budget under President Warren

Ok, what will the NNSA budget look like under President Warren? Trump is toast now, there is no second term and he might be gone before then, so having 1 year of Pence will not mean much. Doubt Biden can survive the scandal either so it is Warren or Sanders. I would bet Warren. Does anyone know what her stance is? She seems anti-nuke from what comments she has made. In any case with end of Trump coming big changes are in store for America.

Sandia Labs: things to come.

Sign of things to come. Sandia Labs is doubling and almost tripling the cost for medical insurance for its retirees.

Sandia is raising all its monthly retiree health insurance premiums by $93 a month. For some, that's almost triple.

Read their letter to retirees here on the first post: www.thesandiatreatment.com

I know Sandia Labs is self-insured for employees. What about retirees?

Consolidated Nuclear Security investigation

CNS conducting investigation at Pantex. DOE Inspector General notified.

https://www.myhighplains.com/news/cns-conducting-investigation-at-pantex/

How are time fraud issues handled elsewhere? Understand a couple at Los Alamos have been brushed aside.

Nuclear myths

Nuclear weapons strange myths:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-top-5-strange-myths-about-americas-nuclear-triad-are-wrong-81466

Delay in nuclear gravity bomb and warhead upgrades

Nuclear Gravity Bomb and Warhead Upgrades Face New Delays

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/09/04/nuclear-gravity-bomb-and-warhead-upgrades-face-new-delays/

By: Joe Gould and Aaron Mehta

Defense News Conference

WASHINGTON ― The United States’ B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb may face an 18 month delay during production, with the W88 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead facing a shorter delay, a top National Nuclear Security Administration official confirmed Wednesday.

The B61-12 life-extension program consolidates and replaces the older B61-3, -4, -7 and -10 variants, while the W88 Alteration 370 is meant to replace the arming, fuzing and firing subsystem for the W88 warhead for the Trident II sub-launched ballistic missile. The two are among five major modernization programs underway at the agency.

Both had been due for production in 2020, but neither will have their first production units delivered on time, according to Charles Verdon, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s deputy administrator for defense programs. NNSA is working with the Defense Department to minimize the delays, but Congress has been informed both will be ready “roughly around the same time,” Verdon said at the at the 2019 Defense News Conference.

The issue stems from off-the-shelf parts used in both weapons. Both systems are planned to work for 20-30 years, and heavy stress testing of the parts raised questions for NNSA officials about whether the parts would survive for three decades. Rather than risk the pieces failing years in the future, officials decided to seek replacements now and delay moving forward with the program

The LANL decline continues

The new APS fellows (American Physical Society Fellows) are out for 2019.

LANL 5

LLNL 6

Sandia 2


So it is looking more and more like LLNL is going to the the science leader in the NNSA complex.
I doubt that many APS fellows will be given for a production facility.

Threat of lawsuit

Pit-making plans draw threat of lawsuit

https://www.abqjournal.com/1368099/pitmaking-plans-draw-threat-of-lawsuit.html