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An aging arsenal Federal officials and many outside analysts are convinced that the government must invest huge sums if it is to maintain the air, sea and land nuclear triad on which the country has relied since the start of the Cold War.
Technicians at the Pantex Plant in Texas, where nuclear bombs are disassembled for testing, prepare to start the evaluation process on a B61 nuclear bomb, the oldest in the arsenal. The B61 is about to undergo a major overhaul that the Pentagon estimates will cost up to $10 billion, or $25 million per bomb.
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NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
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A test launch of a Trident missile, carried by the Navy's Ohio-class nuclear-armed submarine fleet. The fleet will be replaced by new submarines still under design at an estimated cost of $110 billion for 12.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
The first nuclear test, code-named "Trinity," conducted in secret by Los Alamos National Laboratory at Alamogordo, N.M., in 1945. Since then, scientists have developed thermonuclear bombs with many times the destructive force.
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FOTOSEARCH/GETTY IMAGES
This 1959 photo of Sandia National Laboratory's machine shop was taken on Family Day, one of the few occasions when Sandia employees could show their families where they worked. The shop was closed in 2009 because it had become too costly to maintain in the face of diminishing need for specialized machine services.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
A nuclear-armed Minuteman missile is lowered into its silo at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. The land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, whose silos date to the 1960s and 1970s, are one leg in the nuclear triad.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
A display of the nonnuclear components of the B61 bomb gives an idea of the weapon's complexity. There are 400 of the bombs left in the arsenal, some of them based in Europe and managed by the NATO military alliance.
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE/BROOKINGS INSTITUTION VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
This 1989 photo shows Sgt. Stephen M. Kravitsky inspecting a Minuteman III missile inside a silo in North Dakota. The design of a new version of the Minuteman III is still in the preliminary stages. Many nuclear experts believe the ground-launched missiles are the most likely candidate to be cut from the triad if reducing it were to ever become a serious option.
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U.S. AIR FORCE VIA GETTY IMAGES
A technician at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque inspects a newly metallized wafer in this 1998 photo. Sandia's Microelectronics Development Laboratory makes the microchips and many of the other nonnuclear electronics used in nuclear weapons.
RANDY MONTOYA
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
An Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher, Jamison Daniel, stands before a wall of computer-generated images of global climate change produced by the same supercomputers that help simulate the reaction inside a nuclear weapon.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Los Alamos National Laboratory, shown in a 1995 photo, is a sprawling, 150-acre complex where the Manhattan Project began in secret. Today it is one of three national laboratories involved in testing and evaluating the nuclear stockpile. The others are Sandia and Lawrence Livermore, east of San Francisco. Since 2008, they have been run by private contractors.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Old, leaky pipes carrying contaminated liquid waste at the Los Alamos Laboratory's Chemistry and Metallurgy Research plant are duct-taped at the joints. Plastic bags are wrapped around the tape to catch any seepage. Each joint is given a serial number used to track problem spots, according to the plant manager.
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LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
A technician at Los Alamos National Laboratory's 50-year-old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research center conducts tests on radioactive plutonium and other critical materials using protective glove boxes.
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LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
In the "cave" at Los Alamos National Laboratory, an employee wears three-dimensional glasses to virtually assemble a mechanical joint. This capability allows designers to test design plans, train workers and conduct safety evaluations before actually doing those things. The elaborate computer simulations allow scientists to conduct virtual tests on nuclear weapons, too.
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LEROY N. SANCHEZ
An F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, shown during a test flight. Some new models of the $100 million aircraft will be fitted with a new version of the oldest nuclear bomb in the arsenal, the B61.
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LOCKHEED MARTIN/U.S. AIR FORCE VIA BLOOMBERG NEWS
The last Trident submarine, Louisiana, before christening in 1996. The Louisiana is the 18th and last of the Ohio-class submarines.
BOB CHILD
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Inside Building 9212 at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., where highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons is processed, safety inspectors test the pant leg of a visitor for radiation exposure. To enter requires donning layers of protective clothing. No reporter had ever before visited the facility.
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Y-12 NATIONAL SECURITY COMPLEX
Signs of age and corrosion are everywhere in the Y-12s uranium processing plant, the only place in the country that handles large quantities of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. The government plans to spend about $6.5 billion to build a new facility.
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Y-12 NATIONAL SECURITY COMPLEX
Building 9212 is part of what was known as the "Secret City" where uranium for the "Little Boy" atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 was produced. When one of the giant, half-century-old exhaust fans goes on the blink in Building 9212, the repair time idles 30 people "for a $15 part," one official said.
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Y-12 NATIONAL SECURITY COMPLEX
At the new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, an operator loads uranium-filled containers into storage racks. Called the "Fort Knox of uranium," the facility stores uranium extracted from disassembled nuclear weapons. In July, three peace activists slipped through multiple security barriers and reached the plant's outer walls.
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Y-12 NATIONAL SECURITY COMPLEX
A B-2A stealth bomber releases a test version of the B61-11 nuclear bomb.
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NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Airman 1st Class Andrew Lee
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
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