Director issues statement on the nation's stockpile stewardship program
"The Department of Energy's recently completed review of the nation's stockpile stewardship program reaffirms that the program is working effectively to ensure the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future [click here to see the DOE new release]. I fully agree with that assessment. I also believe the specific action items identified in the review will help ensure the long-term success of the program. Los Alamos National Laboratory will work closely with the DOE, the Department of Defense, the other defense labs and the production plants to implement those actions.
"Maintaining the viability of the stockpile in the absence of nuclear testing is an enormously difficult challenge, but we are using very powerful tools today to certify the stockpile, and every day we are enhancing our stewardship tools with even more advanced capabilities that are being developed with this program. The report identifies an appropriate agenda for the program that balances the need for longer-term investments in exploratory science with the need to meet today's requirements in the stockpile. I am particularly pleased that the report also recognizes the crucial need to attract and retain dedicated and talented men and women to work on the program. With a continued strong commitment to the actions identified in this report, I believe that stockpile stewardship will remain an effective program for ensuring the nation's confidence in the stockpile.
"Recent Los Alamos contributions to the stewardship program include several noteworthy successes: the Blue Mountain supercomputer, one of the world's fastest, and the associated development of computational methods that make efficient use of its speed and capacity; continued progress toward developing the capability for producing replacement pits for the stockpile; and completion of the first axis of the world's most powerful flash X-ray source, the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility, a crucial tool that provides high-resolution imaging for understanding weapon performance.
"I applaud the DOE for undertaking this important and comprehensive review."
Rep. William M. (Mac) Thornberry, R-Texas, left, and Dudley Tademy, a staff member with the House Armed Services Committee, right, talk with Laboratory Director John Browne, seccond from left, and Stephen Younger, associate Laboratory director for nuclear weapons, in the ASCII Blue Mountain center during a visit to the Laboratory last Friday. In addition to touring Blue Mountain, the group took a windshield tour of nuclear facilities and heard briefings on security and some of the Laboratory's major programs. Photo by LeRoy N. Sanchez
Texas congressman wants new nuclear agency to provide stability, accountability
The new National Nuclear Security Administration will provide stability and accountability so the Laboratory and the rest of the Department of Energy weapons complex can better focus on their mission, one of the congressmen who is supervising the establishment of the new agency said Friday in an interview with the Newsbulletin.
Rep. William M. (Mac) Thornberry, R-Texas, visited the Laboratory with staffers for other congressmen on the Special Oversight Panel on DOE Reorganization. The group visited the Blue Mountain supercomputer, took a windshield tour of nuclear facilities and heard briefings on security and some of Los Alamos' major programs.
Thornberry said the two goals that guided him and the rest of Congress in establishing the new agency were: to provide a degree of insulation for the DOE weapons complex to improve focus on the primary mission; and to create a clear chain of command, with clear accountability.
"We want to get beyond this difficult time to set up a more stable organization that has the confidence of the American people," Thornberry said. "I hope the new agency can return the focus to the reason that the complex exists."
Thornberry and other panel members are touring all eight DOE weapons labs and manufacturing sites to get a feel for the daily work and learn how the complex issues associated with the transition will affect the sites.
"We came here because we want to communicate to the people who work at Los Alamos and the other DOE sites that we recognize the importance of what they are doing: protecting our freedom; winning the Cold War; and keeping this country secure over the past 50 years," Thornberry said.
Thornberry said Congress wants to see better long-term planning and stability in funding the Laboratory's mission of science-based stockpile stewardship. He would prefer the new agency prepare five-year plans for funding similar to those provided to Congress by the military.
"We hope these changes will help the people who work at the Lab feel their future is more secure," Thornberry said. "We cannot succeed at stockpile stewardship if we don't get and keep the top scientific minds in the country."
Thornberry said he strongly supports the recommendations of the Chiles commission, whose report earlier this year stressed the need for strong, concerted steps to improve retention and recruiting at the defense laboratories.
Thornberry stressed that the Oversight Panel is seeking long-term solutions to the problems that have been interfering with accomplishment of the Laboratory's mission.
"I think the science has suffered in the last nine months, I think recruiting has suffered, and there's been an inevitable lack of focus on your important work," he said. "I hope that in the long run it's worth suffering a little to get these significant, known problems resolved.
"This has been a very difficult time for the entire complex, nowhere more difficult than here at Los Alamos," Thornberry said. "I feel it's important to reemphasize the commitment in Washington to support what you do here."
The chief of the new agency will be a strong administrator with the power -- and the accompanying accountability -- to move quickly when security problems arise, Thornberry said.
He was critical of "reckless statements" made for political gain that have hurt the Laboratory and acknowledged that the weapons complex feels "whipsawed" by competing interests.
"We want to remove the Lab from the day-to-day politics of Washington," Thornberry said. "Greater stability should allow people to focus on doing their jobs."
Although the NNSA is supposed to be operational by March 1 of next year, Thornberry said the complex issues associated with the effort probably will delay that date.
He also acknowledged the importance of maintaining the Lab's ties to the international scientific community.
"I oppose putting the weapons complex under the Department of Defense, but if the Administration doesn't cooperate in trying to make this think work, it will strengthen the hands of those who do want to put the complex under DoD," he said.
"We want the labs to continue doing work for others and doing top-quality science. That's essential," he added.
In fact, Thornberry hopes the increased stability and accountability given Los Alamos and the other defense labs by the new agency will give other government agencies and private companies more confidence that the labs are the right place to carry out difficult, multi-disciplinary research and development.
Thornberry also recommended the Laboratory bring in outside experts to help with security or project management, where appropriate.
"Remember, the final goal isn't security. It's to accomplish the core mission," Thornberry said. "I think that has been somewhat forgotten in Washington."
--Jim Danneskiold
The day the solar wind disappeared
For three days last May, scientists at the Lab and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology watched as the solar wind all but disappeared.
The wind, a stream of plasma from the sun that normally buffets Earth at speeds close to a million miles per hour, suddenly decreased in velocity to roughly 626,000 miles per hour. At the same time, the particle density of the wind decreased from its typical 5 to 10 protons per cubic centimeter of space to 0.2 protons per cubic centimeter. The event, which Lab scientists believe was caused by a coronal mass ejection from the sun, has quickly become one of the mysteries of space weather studies.
In an analysis of the event to be given Tuesday in San Francisco at the 1999 fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, scientists presented data gathered on May 10-12. Data came from the Solar Wind Electron Proton Alpha Monitor flying aboard NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer satellite and the Solar Wind Experiment aboard the WIND satellite. SWEPAM was designed and built at Los Alamos. The Faraday Cup portion of SWE was designed and built by MIT.
"This event is rather baffling in a number of ways," said John Steinberg of Space and Atomospheric Sciences (NIS-1), a scientist in the Los Alamos-MIT collaboration. "First of all, it is extremely rare for the density of the solar wind to drop so low for so long. The mystery is compounded by the low speed of the wind during the event. Not only that, when the wind finally kicked back in, riding in the wind were some of the largest solar wind waves that space scientists had ever seen, causing the speed to change in a matter of a few hours."
The solar wind is the result of the supersonic expansion of the sun's corona. As the coronal plasma flows away from the sun in all directions it creates a constant stream of charged particles. Occasional coronal mass ejections add to the stream as the sun burps a bubble of gas moving at several million miles per hour and containing billions of tons of matter.
"The presence of counter-streaming solar electrons throughout most of the period suggests the event is associated with a solar coronal mass ejection," Steinberg said. "But if that is the case, this is not the garden-variety coronal mass ejection we are used to seeing in the solar wind. Since the particle density of the solar wind typically drops below 3 protons per cubic centimeter only 5 percent of the time, for it to drop to 0.2 is really quite unusual at anytime, including within a coronal mass ejection."
Because the solar wind is an ionized gas-- that is, all the particles carry an electric charge-- the wind sees Earth's magnetic field as an object to flow around. When the solar wind runs into Earth's magnetic field, a bow shock forms creating a shock wave similar to a jet's sonic boom on Earth. The region of space inside the bow shock, where Earth's magnetic field dominates, is referred to as Earth's magnetosphere. The bow shock normally forms about 50,000 miles sunward from Earth.
"The size of the bow shock during this event was incredible," said Alan Lazarus, an MIT space scientist. " This was one of the few times I know of that Earth's bow shock has gone all the way out to the moon."
The May event provided geophysicists with a rare opportunity to examine solar-terrestrial interactions at a time when the magnetosphere was extremely inflated. In the event, Earth's magnetosphere ballooned to many times its normal size as the bow shock was measured by the IMP 8, Interball 1, Geotail and WIND satellites at increasing distances out to 200,000 miles, or roughly the same as the average distance of Earth to the moon. The absence of the wind also gave the magnetosphere less of a cometlike shape by shortening the tail that normally extends out from Earth's night side and making Earth's magnetic field more analogous to the field of a dipole bar magnet.
These unusual boundary conditions for the magnetosphere also had a rather dramatic effect on the particle population inside Earth's magnetosphere. While low-energy plasma particles decreased to some of the lowest density levels ever observed near geosynchronous orbit, the energetic particles trapped by the near-Earth's magnetic field expanded much further out than normally possible.
Launched in 1997, ACE orbits at a distance of roughly a million miles from Earth to provide scientists with information about the solar wind. ACE was designed to provide elemental and isotopic composition measurements of the solar wind and cosmic rays as well as to provide warnings of potential geomagnetic storms caused by coronal-mass ejections that can destroy satellites and disrupt electronic communications and electrical power grids.
NASA launched WIND in 1994 as part of the Global Geospace Science initiative and the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics Project. WIND's task is to provide plasma, energetic particle and magnetic field data for magnetospheric and ionospheric studies of Earth, as well as to investigate plasma processes occurring in the near-Earth solar wind.
Several groups are studying the May event. At MIT are Alan J. Lazarus and Matthias Aellig. At Los Alamos, Dave McComas of Center for Space Science Exploration (NIS-CSSC) and Jack Gosling and Ruth Skoug, both of NIS-2, join Steinberg in the solar wind studies. Also at Los Alamos, Michelle Thomsen and Joe Borovsky of NIS-1 and Reiner Friedel and Tom Cayton, both of Space and Remote Sensing Science (NIS-2), are analyzing the response of the magnetosphere to the event. Both institutions work in collaboration with researchers from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Bartol Research Center at the University of Delaware.
--Todd Hanson
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In this latest set of questions and answers, part 18, Laboratory Director John Browne answers questions about plans for State Road 4, CTBT, LDRD, salaries, the 9/80 work schedule and more (see the Director's home page under "Ask the Director"). The director is always open to employee questions and will answer those sent to him at future@lanl.gov. |
SCC construction ahead of schedule and on budget
What has been bad for skiers has been good for the Strategic Computing Complex construction project: sunny weather. Utilities infrastructure work is continuing and the project is on schedule to begin construction of the actual structure in late February.
"We're ahead of schedule and on budget," said John Bretzke, SCC Project manager. "There is a design review next week and the design-development package should be in place first thing next year, once that is approved, the design firm will finalize their work in preparation for construction."
One result is that parking in the SCC construction area has become even more scarce. Crews have begun digging a new trench across the western edge of the construction site to accommodate large electrical ducts. Approximately four rows of parking spaces on the far western end of the parking lot have been eliminated. This trenching work also has necessitated the closing of the pedestrian gate on Bikini Atoll Road. The project still is on schedule to completely close the parking lot in mid- or late-February.
"We've gotten some complaints about the trucks that are using the western parking area for access to and egress from the construction site. We've talked to the vendors and the Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico drivers about being extra cautious as they go through the parking lot," said Bretzke. "Safety is our primary concern, so we have OSHA-like safety inspections being performed every day." Additionally, some of the green screening material on the construction zone fence has been pulled back at vehicle entrances to improve visibility and safety. Salt barrels are now in position near the pedestrian gates to help melt any ice buildup in that area.
Dru Price of Facilities and Waste Operations-Contract Technical Management (FWO-CTM), reports that the start of shuttle-bus service from the new parking lots to key locations around TA-3 is on schedule and should begin in January. There have been delays in getting the lights in the new parking lots working, but the SCC Project Team now reports that the lights should be working by the holiday. A large number of new parking spaces, especially those in the lot near the old Van de Graff facility, remain unused every day.
After redefining the security boundary and installing some new fence, a temporary sidewalk was opened last week between the back gate entrance to the Administration Building and the Public Affairs Office. New blacktop has been laid to stabilize the walking surface through this area and signs have been posted asking bicyclists to dismount due to the narrow clearance. As soon as the horizontal-boring pit in this area is closed up, the original sidewalk should be reopened. Attention also has been paid to the pedestrian/vehicle flow on Mercury, just north of SM-422. Ramps, fences and cement barriers have been placed around the pit in that area to improve safety.
For additional information about the SCC project, see the Web site at http://int.lanl.gov/projects/asci/scc/.
The SCC Project Team hopes to have a phone line in place soon to take employees calls with questions, comments or complaints about the project.
--Kevin Roark
LANSCE holding gift-giving
drive
Ginger Grant, right, and Stacy Gregory of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) Division Office place some of the gifts donated by employees for less fortunate children in Northern Northern New Mexico next to the Christmas tree display. Each ornament on the tree has the name of a child on it who is guaranted to receive a toy, shoes, shirt and pants for Christmas. Photo by Leroy N. Sanchez
For Crystal and Consuelo and Misty and Shontel
For Rickie and Charlie and Antonio and Arnold
and more than 140 other kids whose holiday the Los Alamos Neutron Science (LANSCE) Division is trying to make sure is filled with gifts and joy.
LANSCE is holding a gift-giving drive for less fortunate Northern New Mexico kids -- ages 1 month to 18 years old -- whose holiday might otherwise not be as joyful as it should.
"In a sense, these children are our children. They come from our communities, and they play and grow up with our children. The program is all about sharing our blessings and good fortune with our neighbors," said program coordinator Ginger Grant of the LANSCE Division Office.
The children's names were provided by New Mexico State's Human Services and Social Services departments and Hogares, a center in Albuquerque that provides special counseling, health and treatment services for families and children.
In all, LANSCE is trying to make sure that 154 less fortunate kids get four gifts each: a toy, shoes, shirt and pants.
"The response we've received so far from employees has been wonderful, and Roger Pynn, LANSCE Division director, has been very supportive and active in our drive," said Grant.
As each child's list is filled, his or her name is written on a paper ornament and placed on a special Christmas tree display in the LANSCE Division Office. So far, about 80 of the 154 children have their names on the tree and thus are assured of receiving four gifts for the holiday.
Employees may choose to get a child one, some or all of the gifts. They also may donate money for Grant and her helpers to buy the gifts. Information on shoe and clothes sizes has been provided to LANSCE by the participating agencies.
Also, CB Fox in Los Alamos is offering a 10 percent discount on regularly priced items purchased for the children. Those who want to buy the gift(s) there, should give the clerk the selected child's name and assigned number, provided by LANSCE.
"We want all Lab employees to share in the joy of giving
of themselves," said Grant.
All toys and clothes need to be wrapped and dropped off at the
LANSCE Division Office by Dec. 20.
To sponsor a child in the gift-giving program or for more information, call Grant, Lorraine Stanford or Stacy Gregory at 7-5051 or write to ggrant@lanl.gov. Information also is available online at http://int.lansce.lanl.gov/ginger/index/htm.
--Ternel N. Martinez
Draft access policy posted to RevCom for employee comment
University of California employees at Los Alamos should have received an all-employee memo Thursday announcing the posting of the Laboratory's draft access policy to RevCom (http://revcom.lanl.gov/) for employee review and comment. The policy outlines access procedures for unions and employee organizations under the California Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act, or HEERA, which will be applied at Los Alamos starting in January. UC employees can comment on the draft policy through Friday.
Director of Human Resources, Helga Christopherson, said in the memo that "Under HEERA, organizations wishing to represent Laboratory employees have a right of access to Laboratory facilities, subject to reasonable regulation. Staff Relations HR-8) prepared draft access procedures that respond to these legal requirements."
Christopherson also noted that in addition to UC employees, the Lab is providing opportunities for comment to organizations that have expressed an interest in representing Laboratory employees.
The memo also reminded employees that forms have been mailed to all UC employees regarding the possible release of their home address and phone number to unions or employee organizations. If employees do not want their personal information released, they should sign the form and mail it to Mail Stop P124 at any time. Additional forms can be downloaded from the Oct. 28 Newsbulletin.
--David Lyons
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UC Northern New Mexico Office holds holiday open house Martha Waters of the University of California's Northern New Mexico Office talks with Bob Velasco, seated, left, at last week's UC holiday open house downtown. Velasco, who works for Los Alamos Technical Associates, provided musical entertainment, while the UC Northern New Mexico Office staff provided food and refreshments. Photo by LeRoy N. Sanchez |
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