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Executive Summary
Pages 1-6

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From page 1...
... SBSS seeks to provide the fundamental technical understanding and capabilities required to manage a safe and reliable stockpile of nuclear weapons under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This task includes the development of increased technical understanding of weapons and weapons-related technologies, including the underlying science, to permit confident prediction, without nuclear testing, of the effects of aging on the safety and performance of stockpiled weapons.
From page 2...
... This key aim of SBSS requires a challenging theoretical, computational, and experimental program in the areas of implosion hydrodynamics, instabilities and mix, radiation transport, and theormonuclear burn. In the committee's judgment, TCF provides a unique synthesis of these relevant physics areas, and the NIF would provide unique capabilities for basic experiments in atomic physics, radiation flows, plasma physics, and hydrodynamics.
From page 3...
... She HEP 5 implosion experiments and modeling comparisons, intended to demonstrate implosion subject to overall hydrodynamic mix and spatial-mode spectra of capsules similar to ignition target designs, have not been successfully completed. Analysis following the original definition of these milestones, including limited three-dimensional hydrodynamics calculations and experiments, shows that the HEP 5 milestone is unrealistic in that it is beyond the reach of the present NOVA configuration and other currently available facilities.
From page 4...
... Continuing experiments and simulations are expected to further define capsule fabrication specifications. Given the evolution of the scientific understanding of hydrodynamic instabilities and the coupling between drive uniformity and capsule fabrication specifications, continuing progress in this area will increase the likelihood of achieving ignition with the proposed NIF.
From page 5...
... FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS The NIF Would Make Important Contributions Toward the Stated Long-Term Goals of the SBSS Program The proposed NIF is a flexible, high-power, high-energy laser facility that will address fundamental high-energy-density physics issues while creating in the laboratory conditions approaching those relevant to a nuclear weapon. The challenge of achieving ignition should help attract and sustain a cadre of talented scientists and engineers with weapons-relevant experience and expertise.
From page 6...
... The steady scientific and technological progress in ICF during the 6 years since the last National Research Council review, 5 the plausibility of ignition estimates based on the experimental and modeling results and capabilities in hand, and the flexibility of the proposed facility all support the committee's finding that the NIF project is technologically and scientifically ready to proceed as planned with reasonable confidence in the attainment of its objectives . SNational Research Council, Review of the Department of Energy 's Inertial Confinement Fusion Program: Final Report, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., September 1990.


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