Superlaser: what's behind the cost and schedule overruns and the delay in reporting them?

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Teams of Investigators Descend on Livermore Lab

LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) -- Two teams of investigators are trying this week to determine why a project involving a super laser designed to simulate the power of a nuclear explosion could run two years late and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.

Investigators from the General Accounting Office arrived at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Monday and a team from the University of California, which manages the lab under contract to the Department of Energy, visited Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Department of Energy is also conducting a review.

The inquiries were prompted by the announcement last month that the project had run into trouble and could be $300 million over budget and two years late.

That was an unpleasant surprise for officials who had been told in June that the project, part of the effort to test nuclear weapons through computer simulations, was in good shape.

In response, the House Committee on Armed Services has asked the GAO to investigate.

The UC team is interviewing scientist and management to find out what's behind the cost and schedule overruns and the delay in reporting them.

UC expects a report later this year. The GAO report is due by the end of January.

The super laser, called the National Ignition Facility, NIF for short, is a football-stadium sized machine described as a cornerstone of efforts to test nuclear weapons for reliability without actually blowing anything up. With its 192 laser beams, the device will shoot a target the size of a BB to simulate temperatures and pressures similar to those inside a nuclear explosion or at the sun's core.

Construction on the super laser, which was supposed to cost $1.1 billion and be completed by 2003, began in 1997.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 21, 1999

Answers

I may have to get a new keyboard since this one is now dripping coffee. What a riot.

-- Drac (Itisdifferntthistime@coffeeoutmynose.com), October 21, 1999.

Unplug the keyboard. Drown it in clean water. Rinse till you're tired of rinsing. Let it dry. Let it dry some more. It should be fine.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), October 21, 1999.

it was done by the fed.gov, what do you expect?!? $200,000 dollers for an outhouse in a national park forest, 5k for a hammer, ect, ect, plus y2k costs in the hundreds of billions... This is no surprise...

-- Crono (Crono@timesend.com), October 21, 1999.

Couldn't get the superlaser to work ... shoot I'm hoping the toilets will work.

-- PD (PaulDMaher@worldnet.att.com), October 21, 1999.

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