In an ultra-sterile room at a secure factory in Kansas City, U.S. government technicians refurbish the nation’s nuclear warheads. The job is exacting: Each warhead has thousands of springs, gears and copper contacts that must work in conjunction to set off a nuclear explosion. Wearing radiation monitors, safety goggles and seven layers of gloves, they practice shaping new warhead plutonium cores — by hand.
Jun. 12—Over the course of two weeks, a government pledge, that dozens of nuclear weapon cores known as pits could be made by 2030 at new and improved facilities some 1,600 miles apart, publicly crumbled. Cracks began to show late last month. On May 27, President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration, former Sandia National Laboratories director Jill Hruby, .
Los Alamos lab may face greater demand for plutonium pits yahoo.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yahoo.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Apr. 22—The head of U.S. Strategic Command in rounds of congressional testimony this week described renewed plutonium pit production efforts as vital to the nation's nuclear arsenal and, as a result, the country's footing on the international slope. Adm. Charles Richard on Tuesday told the Senate Armed Services Committee that pit production — the crafting of nuclear weapon cores, possibly .