Scientists Opposed to Mandating Increased Nuclear Test Readiness
September 25, 2003
We oppose a Congressional mandate to shorten the time the United States would need to resume nuclear testing. Doing so could lead to the very problems such a mandate is designed to address by draining leadership, funds, and attention from the Stockpile Stewardship Program—which is essential to maintaining confidence in the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear-weapon stockpile. It will also undermine efforts by the United States to limit nuclear proliferation.
As the 2002 National Academy of Science (NAS) report1 states, "the United States has the technical capabilities to maintain confidence in the safety and reliability of its existing nuclear-weapon stockpile [without nuclear testing], provided that adequate resources are made available to the Department of Energy's (DOE) nuclear-weapon complex and are properly focused on this task."
We agree with other key points made by the NAS report:
- The first line of defense against safety and reliability problems in the stockpile is an aggressive surveillance program that would include diagnostic procedures applied to weapons that are randomly withdrawn from the stockpile. It is these procedures and the technical depth of the inspections that are required in any case—even if testing were permitted.
- If defects are detected in the stockpile, the preferred solution is to remanufacture the warhead to original specifications, which requires no nuclear testing.
- Based on past experience, any aging problems would likely occur in the non-nuclear components of stockpile weapons, which would be addressed without nuclear testing.
For these reasons, nuclear testing is not needed to discover safety and reliability problems. Shortening the time needed to resume nuclear testing is therefore irrelevant to identifying such problems. It is unlikely that nuclear testing would be needed to address a problem if one appeared, but if it were, the current U.S. test readiness is adequate.
Not only is such an effort unnecessary, it is potentially counterproductive. Mandating an enhancement in test readiness would shift resources away from stewardship activities and therefore impede the most important program for maintaining the safety and reliability of the stockpile.
Finally, a U.S. decision to increase test readiness will undermine U.S. efforts to convince other countries to remain within the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and will encourage China and Russia to resume nuclear testing.
Hans A. Bethe
Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Physics Department, Cornell University
Richard L. Garwin
Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow and Director, Science and Technology Studies Program, Council on Foreign Relations
Marvin Goldberger
President Emeritus, California Institute of Technology
John P. Holdren
Teresa and John Heinz Professor and Director, Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Raymond Jeanloz
Professor of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley
Al Narath
Former President and Director, Sandia National Laboratories
Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky
Professor Emeritus and Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University
Bob Peurifoy
Former Vice-President, Sandia National Laboratories
Steven Weinberg
Jack S. Josey-Welch Foundation Chair in Science and Professor of Physics, University of Texas at Austin
Herbert York
Director Emeritus, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
1. Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, National Academy of Sciences, 2002, pp. 1-2. Available at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10471#toc.
Released by the Union of Concerned Scientists
