Proponents say the tests are necessary to monitor the safety of the nation's aging nuclear stockpile. That ended when President Bush initiated a test moratorium in October 1992. President Clinton continued the moratorium, then signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty last year. In the subcritical tests, scientists will place pieces of plutonium about the size and shape of a silver dollar inside steel canisters and then smash them with an intense blast of conventional explosives. The tests should show whether any characteristics of the highly radioactive metal change as it ages, such as becoming liable to breaking down.
Scientists say they have never fully explored the nuances of plutonium's behavior.
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