Nuclear Weapons: Preliminary Results of Review of Campaigns to	 
Provide Scientific Support for the Stockpile Stewardship Program 
(29-APR-05, GAO-05-636R).					 
                                                                 
In 1992, the United States began a unilateral moratorium on	 
testing nuclear weapons. Subsequently, in 1993, the President and
the Congress directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish
a program to ensure the preservation of the United States' core  
intellectual and technical competencies in nuclear weapons	 
without testing. In response, DOE developed the Stockpile	 
Stewardship Program to (1) increase understanding of the basic	 
phenomena associated with nuclear weapons, (2) provide a better  
predictive understanding of the safety and reliability of nuclear
weapons, and (3) ensure a strong scientific and technical basis  
for future U. S. nuclear weapons policy objectives. The National 
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized	 
agency within DOE, is responsible for carrying out the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program. This responsibility encompasses many	 
different tasks, including activities associated with the	 
research, design, development, simulation, modeling, and	 
nonnuclear testing of nuclear weapons, as well as the planning,  
assessment, and certification of the weapons' safety and	 
reliability. Three nuclear weapons design laboratories support	 
NNSA's mission: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 
California, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, 
and Sandia National Laboratories in California and New Mexico. In
1999, DOE developed a new structure for the Stockpile Stewardship
Program that included a series of what DOE called "campaigns,"	 
which DOE defined as technically challenging, multiyear,	 
multifunctional efforts to develop and maintain the critical	 
capabilities needed to continue assessing the safety and	 
reliability of the nuclear stockpile into the foreseeable future 
without underground testing. DOE originally created 18 campaigns 
that were designed to focus its efforts in science and computing,
applied science and engineering, and production readiness. Other 
program activities associated with the Stockpile Stewardship	 
Program include "directed stockpile work," which includes the	 
activities that directly support maintaining the current weapons 
in the stockpile, and "readiness in technical base and		 
facilities," which includes the physical infrastructure and	 
operational readiness required to conduct campaigns and directed 
stockpile work activities. The Stockpile Stewardship Program is  
now over 10 years old, and NNSA's campaign structure is in its	 
sixth year. In this context, Congress asked us to determine (1)  
how NNSA has organized the campaigns to provide the scientific	 
capabilities required to support the nuclear stockpile, (2) the  
extent to which the scientific campaigns have met their overall  
goals and supporting milestones, and (3) the effectiveness of	 
NNSA's current planning process for the campaigns.		 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-05-636R					        
    ACCNO:   A23000						        
  TITLE:     Nuclear Weapons: Preliminary Results of Review of	      
Campaigns to Provide Scientific Support for the Stockpile	 
Stewardship Program						 
     DATE:   04/29/2005 
  SUBJECT:   Agency missions					 
	     Laboratories					 
	     Nuclear weapons					 
	     Nuclear weapons testing				 
	     Performance measures				 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Weapons research and development			 
	     Safety						 
	     DOE Stockpile Stewardship Program			 

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GAO-05-636R

United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548

April 29, 2005

The Honorable Terry Everett
Chairman
The Honorable Silvestre Reyes
Ranking Member
Strategic Forces Subcommittee
Committee on Armed Services
House of Representatives

Subject: Nuclear Weapons: Preliminary Results of Review of Campaigns to
Provide Scientific Support for the Stockpile Stewardship Program

In 1992, the United States began a unilateral moratorium on testing
nuclear weapons. Subsequently, in 1993, the President and the Congress
directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a program to ensure
the preservation of the United States' core intellectual and technical
competencies in nuclear

1

weapons without testing. In response, DOE developed the Stockpile
Stewardship Program to (1) increase understanding of the basic phenomena
associated with nuclear weapons, (2) provide a better predictive
understanding of the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons, and (3)
ensure a strong scientific and technical basis for future U. S. nuclear
weapons policy objectives. The National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), a separately organized agency within DOE, is responsible for
carrying out the Stockpile Stewardship Program. This responsibility
encompasses many different tasks, including activities associated with the
research, design, development, simulation, modeling, and nonnuclear
testing of nuclear weapons, as well as the planning, assessment, and
certification of the weapons' safety and reliability. Three nuclear
weapons design laboratories support NNSA's mission: Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, Los Alamos National Laboratory
(LANL) in New Mexico, and Sandia National Laboratories in California and
New Mexico.

In 1999, DOE developed a new structure for the Stockpile Stewardship
Program that included a series of what DOE called "campaigns," which DOE
defined as technically challenging, multiyear, multifunctional efforts to
develop and maintain the critical capabilities needed to continue
assessing the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile into the
foreseeable future without underground testing. DOE originally created 18
campaigns that were designed to focus its efforts in science and
computing, applied science and engineering, and production

1National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994, Pub. L. No.
103-160, S:. 3138 (Nov. 30, 1993).

             GAO-05-636R Stockpile Stewardship Scientific Campaigns

readiness. Other program activities associated with the Stockpile
Stewardship Program include "directed stockpile work," which includes the
activities that directly support maintaining the current weapons in the
stockpile, and "readiness in technical base and facilities," which
includes the physical infrastructure and operational readiness required to
conduct campaigns and directed stockpile work activities.

The Stockpile Stewardship Program is now over 10 years old, and NNSA's
campaign structure is in its sixth year. In this context, you asked us to
determine (1) how NNSA has organized the campaigns to provide the
scientific capabilities required to support the nuclear stockpile, (2) the
extent to which the scientific campaigns have met their overall goals and
supporting milestones, and (3) the effectiveness of NNSA's current
planning process for the campaigns. To address these issues, we identified
the six individual NNSA campaigns that primarily deal with providing the
scientific capability required to support the nuclear stockpile. For these
campaigns, we reviewed NNSA campaign planning documents and other
documents related to campaign performance, such as external review panel
reports. We also interviewed campaign program managers at NNSA, LLNL, and
LANL. We focused our work principally on two campaigns-the Primary
Assessment Technologies (Primary) and Secondary Assessment Technologies
(Secondary) campaigns-because these campaigns set the requirements for the
experimental data and computer models needed to assess and certify the
performance of nuclear weapons. We briefed your staff on the preliminary
results of our review. This letter summarizes our briefing. Enclosure I
contains the briefing slides we presented. We conducted the work for this
letter from August 2004 through April 2005 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards. Our work is continuing, and we
expect to issue a final report on NNSA's Stockpile Stewardship Program
scientific campaigns in December 2005.

In summary:

NNSA has six individual campaigns that are intended to provide the
scientific capability required to support the nuclear stockpile. The
Primary and Secondary campaigns are designed to analyze and understand the
different scientific phenomena that occur in the primary and secondary
stages of a nuclear weapon

2

during detonation. As such, the Primary and Secondary campaigns set the
requirements for the experimental data and computer models needed to
assess and certify the performance of nuclear weapons. Four other
campaigns- Dynamic Materials Properties, Advanced Radiography, Advanced
Simulation and Computing, and Inertial Confinement Fusion and High
Yield-provide the experimental and computational support needed to meet
the goals set by the Primary and Secondary campaigns. For example, the
Advanced Simulation and Computing campaign provides the leading-edge
computers and models needed to

2Modern nuclear weapons have two stages: the primary, which is the initial
source of energy, and the secondary, which is driven by the primary and
provides additional explosive energy.

            2 GAO-05-636R Stockpile Stewardship Scientific Campaigns

simulate the performance of nuclear weapons without underground testing.
From fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2004, NNSA spent about $5.8 billion
on these six campaigns.

The Primary and Secondary campaigns have not achieved the overall goals
originally established for them in 1999; however, the Primary and
Secondary campaigns have made progress in completing important supporting
milestones. Initially, the Primary campaign set goals for certifying the
primary stage of a nuclear weapon to within a stated primary yield level
during the 2005 to 2010 time frame. The goals for the Secondary campaign
were closely linked to the goals established for the Primary campaign.
However, achieving these goals has been technically challenging and has
depended on the timely completion of major facilities such as the National
Ignition Facility (NIF) at LLNL and the Dual Axis Radiographic
Hydrodynamic Test Facility (DARHT) at LANL-both of which have experienced
major delays due to problems with technical issues and project management
and are still not complete.3 In 2003, NNSA modified the original goals for
the Primary and Secondary campaigns and extended them into the 2010 to
2014 time frame.

Between 1999 and 2003, NNSA did not have a uniform planning process for
approving and tracking campaign milestones, and the planning process that
did exist was not applied in a consistent manner at LANL and LLNL.
However, in 2003, NNSA implemented a new planning process for the
campaigns, including the establishment of a uniform set of requirements
for campaign program and implementation plans. In addition, NNSA
implemented a system for tracking the progress of major milestones through
the use of a milestone reporting database and a quarterly performance
review meeting for managers involved in the Stockpile Stewardship Program.
However, NNSA officials have acknowledged that current campaign plans
still do not provide clear linkages between goals and supporting
milestones, and they do not adequately coordinate and set priorities for
the scientific research currently conducted across the weapons complex. In
response, NNSA officials are revising campaign plans and overall
milestones for the Primary campaign for fiscal year 2006. Finally, NNSA,
LANL, and LLNL officials have endorsed the use of a new methodology for
assessing and certifying nuclear warheads. This methodology, known as the
Quantification of Margins and Uncertainties, draws together data from
simulations, experiments, and expert judgments to quantify confidence
factors for the key potential failure areas in a nuclear weapon. However,
NNSA and laboratory officials, as well as outside experts, acknowledge
that this methodology is still incomplete and evolving. According to NNSA
plans, full implementation of this methodology is not expected until the
2010 to 2014 time frame.

3DARHT was originally scheduled for completion in 2003 and is now
scheduled for completion in 2008. NIF will not be complete until 2008, 5
years after the original completion date of 2003.

            3 GAO-05-636R Stockpile Stewardship Scientific Campaigns

We provided NNSA with a draft of our report and received oral comments
from NNSA's Assistant Deputy Administrator for Research, Development, and
Simulation. NNSA generally agreed with our findings. With respect to our
statement on the implementation of the Quantification of Margins and
Uncertainties methodology, NNSA stated that it plans to establish
intermediate milestones to support the implementation of this methodology
prior to 2010. NNSA also stated that it believes this methodology provides
a clearer and more comprehensive approach to assessing the performance of
nuclear weapons than was provided by the initial goals established for the
Primary and Secondary campaigns. In addition, NNSA made technical
clarifications that we incorporated as appropriate in this report.

                                   _ _ _ _ _

As agreed with your offices, we will make copies of this letter available
to others
upon request. This letter will also be available at no charge on GAO's Web
site at
http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this letter or need
additional
information, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or James Noel, Assistant
Director, at (202) 512-3591.

Major contributors to this letter include Jason Holliday, Keith Rhodes,
Judy
Pagano, Doreen Feldman, Carol Herrnstadt Shulman, and Peter Ruedel.

Gene Aloise
Director, Natural Resources

and Environment

Enclosure

            4 GAO-05-636R Stockpile Stewardship Scientific Campaigns

Preliminary Results of Review of Stockpile Stewardship Program Scientific
                                   Campaigns

                   Preliminary Results of Review of Stockpile
                    Stewardship Program Scientific Campaigns

Briefing for the Staff of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee Armed Services
                       Committee House of Representatives

                                 April 4, 2005

Background

o 	The President and the Congress in 1993 directed that a science-based
Stockpile Stewardship Program be developed to maintain the nuclear
stockpile without nuclear testing.

o 	In 1999, the Department of Energy (DOE) developed a new program
activity structure for stockpile stewardship that included campaigns,
which are programs designed to develop and maintain the critical
capabilities needed to enable the continued assessment of the
certification basis of the stockpile into the foreseeable future without
nuclear testing.

o 	The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately
organized agency within DOE, is responsible for carrying out the Stockpile
Stewardship Program.

o 	Three nuclear weapons design laboratories support NNSA's mission:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL), and Sandia National Laboratories.

Objectives

o 	We are reviewing NNSA's management of the campaigns that provide
scientific capabilities required to support the Stockpile Stewardship
Program. Specifically, we are determining:

o 	How NNSA has organized the campaigns to provide the scientific
capabilities required to support the stockpile,

o 	The extent to which the campaigns have met their overall goals and
supporting milestones, and

o 	The effectiveness of NNSA's current planning process for the campaigns.

Scope and Methodology

o 	To address these issues, we have performed the following work to date,
focusing principally on the Primary and Secondary Assessment Technologies
campaigns:

o 	Identified six campaigns that deal primarily with providing the
scientific capability required to support the stockpile;

o 	Interviewed program managers at NNSA, LLNL, and LANL;

o  Reviewed campaign planning documents; and

o 	Reviewed other documents related to campaign performance, such as
external review panel reports.

Summary

o 	Six individual NNSA campaigns provide the scientific capability
required to support the stockpile.

o 	The Primary and Secondary campaigns have not achieved the overall goals
established for them in 1999. However, they have made progress in
completing supporting milestones.

o 	NNSA has made changes to improve its planning process for the campaigns
but still lacks a road map that describes how the Primary and Secondary
campaigns will achieve their long-term goals.

Organization of Campaigns

o 	Six individual NNSA campaigns provide the scientific capability
required to support the stockpile.

o 	Two campaigns-Primary and Secondary Assessment Technologies-set the
requirements for experimental data, codes, and models needed to assess the
performance of a nuclear weapon.

o 	Four other campaigns support the needs of the Primaryand Secondary
campaigns.

o  Dynamic Materials Properties campaign

o  Advanced Radiography campaign

o  Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) campaign

o  Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and High Yield campaign

Organization of Campaigns (cont.)

NNSA Expenditures for Campaigns, Fiscal Years 2001-2004

Dollars in millions

                            FY 2001    FY 2002    FY 2003    FY 2004    Total 
          Primary              45.5       48.8       46.3       40.1    180.7 
         Secondary             40.0       39.2       46.8       53.1    179.1 
Advanced Radiography  78.4 705.0 93.5 645.1 70.5 759.7 52.1 719.1    294.5 
ASC Dynamic Materials       72.6       75.2       81.0       85.4  2,828.9 
        Properties                                                      314.2 
            ICF               471.6      553.0      493.2      467.2  1,985.0 
           Total            1,413.1    1,454.8    1,497.5    1,417.0  5,782.4 

                                 Source: NNSA.

Campaign Goals and Milestones

o 	The Primary and Secondary campaigns have not achieved the overall goals
established for them in 1999.

o 	In 1999, DOE established a planning structure for the campaigns,
including a mix of goals and milestones contained in program and
implementation plans for each campaign.

o 	The Primary campaign set goals for certifying weapons to within a
stated yield level in the 2005-2010 time frame. These goals were closely
linked to the goals established for the Secondary campaign.

o 	DOE recognized that achieving these goals would be technicallydifficult
and would depend on the completion of major facilities such as the
National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the Dual Axis Radiographic
Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) Facility.

o 	Major facilities such as NIF and DARHT are still not complete, with
inadequate project management and technical problems as major causes.

o 	NNSA modified the goals for the Primary and Secondary campaigns in
2003, with key milestones now due in the 2010-2014 time frame.

Campaign Goals and Milestones (cont.)

o 	However, the Primary and Secondary campaigns have made progress in
completing supporting milestones.

o 	Between 1999 and 2003, NNSA did not have a uniform planning process for
approving and tracking campaign plans and milestones. As a result, we were
limited in our ability to assess campaign performance.

o 	In addition, LANL and LLNL officials did not initiallyimplement the
campaign planning structure in a consistent manner.

o 	However, by reviewing plans and conducting interviews with NNSA and
LLNL officials on a subset of technical milestones, we verified that most
of the technical milestones we examined for the Primary and Secondary
campaigns have been achieved.

NNSA's Planning Process

o 	NNSA has made changes to improve its planning process for the
campaigns.

o 	In 2003, NNSA implemented a new planning process for the campaigns,
including a uniform set of requirements for campaign program and
implementation plans.

o 	NNSA also implemented a system for tracking the progress of major
milestones through the use of quarterly performance reviews.

o 	This planning structure has taken place within the context of a larger,
agency-wide process called the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and
Evaluation process, which NNSA implemented in fiscal year 2004.

NNSA's Planning Process (cont.)

o 	However, NNSA still lacks a road map that describes how the Primary and
Secondary campaigns will achieve their long-term goals.

o 	NNSA officials have acknowledged that current campaign plans do not
provide clear linkages between goals and long-term milestones, and do not
adequately coordinate and prioritize the scientific research currently
conducted across the weapons complex.

o 	NNSA officials are revising campaign plans and high-level milestones
for the primary campaign for fiscal year 2006.

o 	NNSA and the weapons labs have endorsed the use of the Quantification
of Margins and Uncertainties methodology for assessing and certifying
nuclear warheads. However, NNSA and lab officials, as well as outside
experts, acknowledge that this methodology is still incomplete and
evolving. According to NNSA plans, full implementation of this methodology
is not expected until the 2010-2014 time frame.

(360582)
*** End of document. ***