US military 'forgot how' to upgrade its 9,600 nuclear warheads

Patching up the US military's nuclear arsenal was delayed by at least a year - because they forgot how to manufacture one crucial part with the codename Fogbank. It's essential to extend the durability of the nuclear warheads on Trident rockets.

The US military was upgrading the old nuclear warheads to allow them to work with them in the next generations. The American government has a stockpile of about 9,600 nuclear missiles In October last year, then-secretary of State Robert Gates also warned about the problem that the United States no longer had enough nuclear scientists on active duty to help them maintain the present nuclear arsenal nor to build new weapons. Nevertheless, he pointed out, "as long as others have nuclear weapons, we must maintain those weapons ourselves.' (see video above). And on March 3, 2009, this problem of nuclear proliferation was also emphasized by President Obama, when he told the Russian president to 'not help Iran build missiles.' see and the US state department warned that Iran has the nuclear fuel needed to make a bomb, see The entire problem with Fogbank -- for which an entire new factory also had to be built -- came to light when the Government Accountability Office was investigating the long delays and mounting costs in the upgrading process of the nuclear arsenal. The Pentagon had to go through a rapid self-education programme to learn how to manufacture another Fogbank. Everybody was pensioned off "Very few archives were left which could have shown researchers how the material was manufactured during the 1980s. And just about everybody who ever worked on the programme, was pensioned off'. Other problems: the factory which made Fogbank was dismantled during the 1990s and when the Pentagon ordered a new factory, there were tremendous cost overruns to the tune of 69-million dollars because the wrong blueprints were used. The Government Accountability Office says the Pentagon has drawn an expensive lesson from the experience: "They now know that it's wrong to simply presume they could do something because they'd done it before.' read report here A Carnegie Institute for Peace study also revealed recently that the United States spends $52-billion a year to maintain, upgrade and operate its nuclear weapons arsenal. The Carnegie study has found the American government spends more than $52-billion a year for its nuclear programs but spends very little on other programs. The money spent for diplomacy, foreign assistance, general science, space, technology and other energy programs are far less compared to the budget for nuclear requirements. The study was posted in the Federation for American Scientists’ Secrecy News blog and noted the following:

"Nuclear security consumes $13 billion more than international diplomacy and foreign assistance; nearly double what the United States allots for general science, space, and technology; and 14 times what the Department of Energy (DOE) budgets for all energy-related research and development.

$52 billion is allocated for maintaining, upgrading and operating its nuclear arsenal: The Department of Energy’s budget mainly comprises of nuclear weapons or related programs -- about 67 per cent is allocated for nuclear arsenal programs instead of allocating the money for solar, wind and other forms of energy. The budget spends $700 million, just 1.3 per cent to get ready for a nuclear attack in the U.S. soil. The study’s author Stephen Schwartz believes if other clandestine nuclear programs are involved, the budget will be very much higher than $52 billion. Schwartz also notes that the U.S. spends more money on enhancing nuclear forces than preventing nuclear proliferation. Full report, “Nuclear Security Spending: Assessing Costs, Examining Priorities," by Stephen I. Schwartz and Deepti Choubey, here. also see