Building the bombs
Subtitle: a history of the nuclear weapons complex
By: Charles R. Loeber ; edited by Lorna Gail Clark and Phil Brittenham ; illustrated by Michael Townsend ; designed by Jan Gaunce
Contributors: Clark, Lorna Gail; Brittenham, Phil; Sandia National Laboratories; Brittenham, Phillip W.
Edition: 3rd ed.
Publisher: Sandia National Laboratories
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Albuquerque, N.M
Language: eng
Number of pages: 266
Copyright date: 2002
Subjects: Nuclear weapons; History
Other titles: History of the nuclear weapons complex
Description: The Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC) is a nationwide group of government-owned sites that is responsible for the design, development, production, modification, repair, assemble, disassembly, and testing of all nuclear weapons in the U S stockpile. The NWC has evolved since the beginning of the Manhattan Project in 1942 to meet national security objectives. It has met these objectives by: building the weapons that ended World War II; building a stockpile of weapons that served as a deterrent to the Soviet Union during the Cold War; incorporating new technologies into the stockpile; safely downsizing the stockpile and dismantling the excess nuclear weapons after the Cold War was over, and ensuring that the remaining stockpile is safe and reliable. This book provides a high level summary of this story. It begins in 1905 with Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and his famous equation, E=mc2, and ends in the year 2001 with a discussion of the post-Cold War challenges for the NWC. It explains how and why the NWC grew from three sites at the start of the Manhattan Project to over fifty sites at the height of the Cold War, to eight sites-three laboratories, four production plants and one test site-after the Cold War ended.
Notes: Shipping list no.: 2013-0093-P.

"SAND # 2012-7878P"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000."--P. iv.
Table of contents: title: Einstein opens the door; title: The Manhattan Project; title: German atomic bomb program; title: Espionage during the Manhattan Project; title: Creating the Cold War; title: Two scorpions in a bottle; title: Tests and test sites; title: Performance improvements; title: To the brink; title: Safety and security improvements; title: Ending the Cold War; title: Maintaining deterrence; title: Epilogue; title: Appendices.