To achieve President Bush’s goal of “a stockpile with the lowest-possible number of nuclear weapons consistent with our national security needs,” the complex must continue on its current path of stockpile dismantlement. At the same time it must develop the capability to produce new warheads in a much more agile, timely fashion. The goal, according to former NNSA Administrator Linton F. Brooks, is to “demonstrate that we can produce warheads on a timescale in which geopolitical threats could emerge.”
Achieving such a responsive infrastructure presents a challenge to our existing views of engineering, itself — a challenge that Sandia President and Director Tom Hunter has embraced. As the nation’s premier engineering laboratory, Sandia should be in a leadership position in this transition, he maintains.
By using simulation-based engineering design, a concept that relies on high-speed computers that fold together design ideas with hard performance data from tests and experiments, use of computer models, and detailed scientific understanding of processes, Sandia is attempting to accelerate engineering and engineering innovation to this end.