The US is embarking on an ambitious nuclear weapons effort, planning to spend more than $750 billion over the next decade to replace almost every component of its nuclear defenses, including new stealth bombers, submarines, and ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. This represents the most significant nuclear weapons modernization since the Manhattan Project.
It s up to young military troops and government technicians across the U.S. to care for the existing bombs, often through delicate maintenance performed by hand.
It s up to young military troops and government technicians across the U.S. to care for the existing bombs, often through delicate maintenance performed by hand.
In an ultra-sterile room at a secure factory in Kansas City, U.S. government technicians refurbish the nation’s nuclear warheads. The job is exacting: Each warhead has thousands of springs, gears and copper contacts that must work in conjunction to set off a nuclear explosion. Eight hundred miles away in New Mexico, workers in a steel-walled…
It s up to young military troops and government technicians across the U.S. to care for the existing bombs, often through delicate maintenance performed by hand.