America is planning to spend Around $ 2 trillion over the next 30 years to upgrade its nuclear weapons systems. Protecting and maintaining the existing us stockpile of more than 5,000 nukes is an expensive job that requires specially trained people with niche decides and interesting. Dog Cuts Have Gotten Rid of Hundreds of that People.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency Has Been Slashing through the federal workforce without much time for the consultations. A new report from The new york times Details how bad the cuts have been after
The nnsa made news news in February when doge fired more than 300 of its staffers only to send them panicked emails rescinding the layoffs after it realized Oversaw the nuclear stockpileAt the time, spekespeople for the doe told news outlets that less than 50 people had dismissed and that most of them was clerical and admin types.
According to the TimesThe number is Much Higher and the Losses Far Greater. The dog cuts did not begin with layoffs but with buyout offers. More than 130 people working on nukes tooks during offers. The timeS also said 27 people were fired and not re-hired. The list included “At Least 27 Engineers, 13 Program or Project Analysts, 12 Program or Project Manners, SIX BUDGET Analysts or Accountants, Five Physicists, As Wells Attorneys, Compliance Officers and Technologists, According to Internal Lists, “According to the Times,
The plan to spend Around $ 20 billion a year modernizing nuclear weapons will be slowed down by these cuts. The plan was for the US to Construct New Missile Silos Across Multiple States, Build New Nuclear Missiles to Place in Thos in Silos, and Churn Out New Nuclear-Powered and Nuclear-Armed Submarines. Working on nukes requires a specialized set of skills. The US Industrial Base Isn�T set up to do it and it was going to cost a lot of money to get the whole thing
It’ll be significantly harder now. “Cutting Experts in Nuclear Security at the very moment when the us is replacing its entrance nuclear arssenal is foolish. This Ambitious Undertaking Alady Has Serious Risks and Proceeding with Fewer Qualified Specialists Makes Makes it More Likely that Something will go aWry, potential Endangering Public Safety, “John Carl Baker, Deputy Director of Programs at the ploughshares Fund, Told GizModo.
Among the Lost is Kyle Fowler, The Director of the Nnsa’s Office of Strategic Materials Production Modernization. Fowler’s office was part of an office that worked on Enriching Uranium. The ore is critical for the production of weapons and power plants but American production has lagged behind major producers like Russia, Canada, and Kazakhstan. Three countries with which the us hasn’t been on great terms.
Also gone is lina cordro who worked on modernizing plutonium pit production. Plutonium pits are the core Piece of a Nuclear Weapon and a Critical Component of the Sentinel-Class Missiles The Us Wants to Stick in All the time new silos. Manufacturing them is a bit of a loss art. The los alamos national laboratory Made exactly one Last year and it was a big enough deal that they are issued a press release about it.
Thos new missiles will need pits and the plan is to ramp up production and production 30 to 50 to 50 a year by 2028. But los alamos only Produced a more Pits Between 2007 and 2011 and now stopped. The US hasn’t manufactured pits at Scale Since 1989. Why did we stop? The Rocky Flats Plant outside of Denver Colorado Made Most of the CORES. It was a nightmer of nuclear waste so horifying that the Fbi raided the place in 1989 and shut it down,
Rocky flats is so poisonous that the epa has demed it a superfund site. After the Raid, the FBI Discovered 62 pounds of Plutonium in Ventilation Systems. Radiation levels in some area of the plant was so high that geiger counters could not register it. Rates of Cancer and Infant Mortality in the Surrounding Community was enormous.
As plans move forward to ramp up plutonium production in new mexico and south carolina, federal courts And Local Communities have pushed back. They need to know it’ll be different this time, that Another Rocky Flats Won’T Happen. Thanks to dog, many of the people who could help answer that question are gone.
The bulk of the doe’s nuclear work is done by Around 60,000 Contract Workers. The people who build the missiles, dig the silos, and construct submarines are people working for a federal contract. The doe told the Times Thatay workers have been exhempt from cuts. And that may be true, but a lot of the people who oversee that workers are gone.
You’ll be shocked to hear that american defense contractors are all Always on his best behavior. They don’t always have their works’ Best Interest at Heart Nor Are They Great at Saving Taxpayer Money. The Sentinel Nuclear Weapons Program That Will See The Country Dig 450 New Silos is 81% Over BudgetThere’s no guarantee costs won’t climb.
Northrop Gramman is building the Missile and Employers Thousands of Contractors to Get it don. In 2023, two people working for northrop grumman at a plant in magna, utah where it makes ballistic missiles -including the syntinel –Died on the jobThe two men are suffocated due to an argon leak in the room they worked in, a knowledge problem in that particular part of the plan. The contractor will avoid criminal prosecution For the deaths.
Donald Trump has said he Wants to denuclearize But the nuclear weapons industry complex has a habit of grinding forward. There is so much money on the line and so many jobs at stake, that it’s hard to imagine a future where he ends the production of nukes in America. What he has done, through dog, is make an alredy expensive and unsafe industry far more dangerous and costly.