Nuclear Weapons: Miscellaneous Resources
updated 25 Aug 2021

Stockpile Stewardship
The post cold war nuclear weapons research, design, and testing program, called Science Based Stockpile Stewardship, has been justified as a means to understand the processes of aging in nuclear weapons, and to guarantee that each weapon in the U.S. arsenal remains in working order. Without full scale nuclear testing (which was the primary way of evaluating aging weapons and new designs prior to 1992) the National Laboratories have resorted to a program of advanced computer modeling/simulation, subcritical nuclear explosives testing, and a whole new gamut of new ways to carry out their nuclear weapons missions.

Plutonium Explosions: Subcritical Testing
Since the United States' last full nuclear weapons test at the Nevada Test Site in September of 1992 all subsequent nuclear weapons explosives tests have been subcritical. A subcritical test is similar to a full scale nuclear detonation in that a plutonium core and other weapons grade elements are subjected to compression under a high explosives blast, but the implosion is not sufficient to sustain the criticality necessary for the process of nuclear fission.

New Weapons
Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. Military, Department of Energy, and the nuclear weapons laboratories never stopped designing new weapons. Some are modifications on pervious designs such as the B61 which became the B61-11. Others such as the proposed earth penetrator and low yield nuclear weapons will be new designs.

Nuclear Testing
Between 1945 and 1992 the United States conducted over 1054 (official count) [1] full scale nuclear weapons tests on air, land, and sea, and even in space. Major test sites included several sites in the South Atlantic, Bikini Atoll, the Christmas Islands, Enewetak, and Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, Amchitka in Alaska, Rifle, and Grand Valley in Colorado, Farmington, Alomogordo, and Carlsbad in New Mexico, Hattiesburg in Mississippi, and approximately 904 nuclear explosions in Nevada at the Nevada Test Site.

1. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office. “United States Nuclear Test: July 1945 - September 1992.” DOE/NV - 209 Rev 15 December 2000.

Plutonium (link to our section on the most recent plutonium plans at Los Alamos)

Modernization undermines security (link to our page on Ted Postol and other modernization articles & papers)

Nuclear Matters Handbook 2020

Nuclear Matters Handbook 2016

Nuclear Matters Handbook 2011

Nuclear Matters Handbook 2008