Avatar photoNuclear Cooperation with India

A week or so ago, Dave Ruppe at Global Security Newswire reported that … More than a dozen former senior U.S. nuclear arms control and nonproliferation officials and other experts recently expressed reservations about a potential U.S.-India nuclear energy deal, while a senior Republican legislator this week came out in favor of the agreemen Arms …

Avatar photoHow bad things happen to bad space programs

The Pentagon appears to have a loose construct of time and savings when it comes to the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. Originally intended to give the United States guaranteed access to space, it instead has done in its seven painful years of existence nothing more than give government regulators a giant headache. An …

Avatar photoIEER on Missing Plutonium

The Insitute for Energy and Environmental Research released a report on 29 November 2005 (written by two scientists, Brice Smith and Arjun Makhijani), detailing the amount of weapons-grade plutoinum that is in the soil or being stored as waste at Los Alamos. It contained this startling claim: There are major discrepancies in the materials accounts …

Avatar photoIs ABL going gently into that good night?

Missile defense programs generally don’t die; they fade away. They’re born of great hope and expectations, which they gradually piss away with poor performance and unbelievable cost growth until they can be quietly put out to pasture. Airborne Laser (ABL) seemed to be one of those unstoppable programs. Laser too heavy for the aircraft? Problems …