On January 15, 1993, the Department of Energy (DOE) approved the Justification for Mission Need (JMN) for the National Ignition Facility (NIF). This action (Key Decision Zero, or KD0) commenced the conceptual design for the facility, which has resulted in a recently completed Conceptual Design Report (CDR). The JMN document defined the NIF mission elements to include laboratory fusion ignition and energy gain, weapons physics, and nuclear weapons effects testing research (NWET). NIF has a dual benefit by contributing to inertial fusion energy (IFE), industrial technology development, new basic science areas applying high power lasers, and training young scientists for future stewardship activities. For consideration of the next DOE action, Key Decision One (KD1), all mission elements of the NIF as stated in the JMN are consistent with and important to the US stockpile stewardship program, and are expected to continue to be in the vital interest of the United States for the long term. This document provides further information on the utility of NIF for stockpile stewardship, including support for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and specific findings of four national workshops on the NIF utility for weapons physics, NWET, IFE and basic science research. The role of NIF for stockpile stewardship has been refined since a DOE meeting in Albuquerque, NM Feb. 1--2, 1994. The possible compliance of NIF research with anticipated CTBT and NPT limitations was discussed at the DOE Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation in Washington, DC on March 8, 1994.

The DSB Task Force was asked to: ̂ Assess the proposed ignition and "non-ignition" high energy density experimental physics programs at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). ̂ Assess the program's executabitity, particularly with respect to the availability of NIF and supporting technologies. ̂ Assess the overall balance and priority of activities within the proposed plan and the degree to which the proposed program of NIF experiments supports the near- and long-term goats of stockpile stewardship. ̂ Assess the extent to which the major stakeholders in NIF are effectively integrated into the plan The National Ignition Facility and planned programs of high energy density work build on a 30-year program expanding understanding of astrophysics, weapons physics, and other scientific areas of interest. The NIF adds new regimes in pressure, temperature, and density that will, given success in achieving ignition, provide visibility into the physical phenomena at the heart of nuclear explosions, astrophysics, and other very high energy density plasmas. Hence the NIF capability to produce thermonuclear burn will provide the much-needed understanding of the most important remaining question in weapons physics.

Physics at the beginning of the twenty-first century has reached new levels of accomplishment and impact in a society and nation that are changing rapidly. Accomplishments have led us into the information age and fueled broad technological and economic development. The pace of discovery is quickening and stronger links with other fields such as the biological sciences are being developed. The intellectual reach has never been greater, and the questions being asked are more ambitious than ever before. Physics in a New Era is the final report of the NRC's six-volume decadal physics survey. The book reviews the frontiers of physics research, examines the role of physics in our society, and makes recommendations designed to strengthen physics and its ability to serve important needs such as national security, the economy, information technology, and education.

The Univ. of CA, under contract to the DoE to operate Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab., is building the Nat. Ignition Facility. DoE considers the Nat. Ignition Facility an essential component of its Stockpile Stewardship Program, which is responsible for ensuring the safety & reliability of nuclear weapons in the absence of nuclear testing. The Nat. Ignition Facility was originally expected to cost about $2 billion when complete in 2002, but DoE has increased the cost & moved the completion date to 2006. This report determines the magnitude of the Nat. Ignition Facility's cost & schedule overruns; documents the reasons for them; & assesses the effects of the Nat. Ignition Facility's cost & schedule on other weapons programs. Tables.