In considering the future of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, the government must decide between two basic courses of action, explains a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service: either it must seek to extend the functional lifetime of existing nuclear weapons, or it must develop a new generation of warheads.

The CRS report compares and contrasts the pros and cons of these two options.

Another potential option, abolition of nuclear weapons, is not considered by the CRS, since “it has garnered no support in Congress or the Administration.”

The CRS does not make its products directly available to the public. A copy of the new report was obtained by Secrecy News.

See “Nuclear Warheads: The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program and the Life Extension Program,” December 13, 2006.

Some other notable recent reports from the CRS include the following (all pdf).

“The Military Commissions Act of 2006: Analysis of Procedural Rules and Comparison with Previous DOD Rules and the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” October 12, 2006.

“FY2007 Appropriations for State and Local Homeland Security,” updated October 6, 2006.

“Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF),” October 18, 2006.

“Uganda: Current Conditions and the Crisis in North Uganda,” October 20, 2006.

Updated Below

When the New York Times mentioned in passing recently that polonium-210 had once been used to power U.S. spacecraft, it caused a furrowing of the brow among the seven or so people who dwell on the history of space nuclear power, since it is almost certainly not correct.

“President Eisenhower, eager to promote ‘atoms for peace,’ had the high heats of polonium 210 turned into electricity for satellites,” wrote the estimable William J. Broad in a recent Times Week in Review piece (“Polonium, $22.50 Plus Tax,” December 3). “But the batteries lost power relatively fast because of the material’s short half-life, just 138 days. The United States made few such spacecraft.”

Not so, according to Gary L. Bennett, who devoted much of his career at the Department of Energy and NASA to the development of space nuclear power sources.

“As far as I know, the U.S. never flew a spacecraft powered by polonium-210,” Dr. Bennett told Secrecy News.

Dr. Bennett identified one documentary source (pdf) that claimed otherwise, a history of isotope production at the Mound Laboratory in Ohio. It is consistent with the New York Times account, but he said it too was in error.

That Mound history described the use of polonium in an early radioisotope power supply called SNAP 3A:

“The first SNAP-3A, fueled with polonium-210, provided power to a satellite radio transmitter. The use of satellites powered by SNAP for global communication was first demonstrated under President Eisenhower in 1961, at which time the President’s peace message was broadcast via a satellite containing a radio transmitter powered by the SNAP-3A RTG.” See here (at page 4).

But all other historical accounts agree that the first SNAP-3A was launched on June 29, 1961 (on the Transit 4A spacecraft), after President Eisenhower had left office, and it was fueled with plutonium-238, not polonium-210.

It is true that the SNAP-3A was originally designed with polonium fuel, because of Atomic Energy Commission restrictions on plutonium, according to a deeply researched official history of space nuclear power (very large pdf) prepared for the Department of Energy.

A photograph of President Eisenhower in the Oval Office enthusiastically examining a polonium-fueled SNAP battery appeared on the front page of the Washington Evening Star on January 16, 1959. (“Nuclear critic Ralph Lapp complained that a highly lethal item had been placed on the President’s desk.”)

But “the AEC eventually relaxed its policy and agreed to provide the plutonium fuel and SNAP-3A, as a result, was converted from polonium-210 to plutonium-238,” the official history stated (at page 23).

“Despite the president’s enthusiasm [in January 1959], the first RTG [radioisotope thermoelectric generator] flight came two and a half years after the White House demonstration,” the official DOE history states (page 18).

It was the plutonium-fueled version that was launched into space in June 1961, not the original polonium-fueled design.

See “Atomic Power in Space: A History,” prepared for U.S. Department of Energy, March 1987 (188 pages, 8.5 MB).

Polonium-fueled radioisotope power or heater units were used on spacecraft launched by the former Soviet Union on a number of occasions, Dr. Bennett noted.

Update: To its credit, the New York Times ran the following correction on December 17:

“An article on Dec. 3 about the many uses of polonium 210 referred incorrectly to the radioactive material utilized in early American satellites. While plans were drawn up to use polonium 210 as a power source, and one federal document said it was used, nuclear experts say that the government decided instead to rely on plutonium 238; no American satellites ever flew with polonium 210.”

A recent report from the secretive JASON scientific advisory group considers the feasibility of using microorganisms to produce fuels as a metabolic product, such as hydrogen or ethanol.

“Microorganisms present a great opportunity for energy science,” the JASON report (pdf) to the Department of Energy said.

“Microorganisms are simpler than plants; they have smaller genomes and proteomes, and are easier to manipulate and culture. The enormous biodiversity of microorganisms presents a broad palette of starting points for engineering. Microorganisms already make many metabolic products, some of which are useful fuels.”

“Boosting the efficiency of fuel formation from microorganisms is an important research challenge for the twenty first century.”

The JASONs do not publish even their unclassified reports in an orderly or consistent fashion. A copy of the new report was obtained by Secrecy News.

See “Engineering Microorganisms for Energy Production,” JSR-05-300, June 23, 2006 (92 pages, 1.1 MB).

Updated Below

A recently updated U.S. Army regulation (pdf) defines the parameters of legitimate military intelligence activities and outlines procedures for identifying “questionable” intelligence operations.

Among the permissible activities, for example, military intelligence “may conduct nonconsensual physical surveillance of U.S. persons who are– military personnel on active duty status; present or former intelligence component employees; present or former intelligence component contractors and their present or former employees; applicants for intelligence component employment or contracting” and “persons in contact with those who fall into [the above categories] to the extent necessary to identify the person in contact” (sect. 9-2).

“Nothing in this procedure will be interpreted as authorizing the collection of any information relating to a U.S. person solely because of that person’s lawful advocacy of measures opposed to Government policy” (sect. 2-5).

However, “commonly reported questionable intelligence activities [include] improper collection, retention, or dissemination of U.S. person information [such as] gathering information about U.S. domestic groups not connected with a foreign power or international terrorism” (sect. 15-4).

Other “commonly reported questionable activities” include “searching or monitoring a U.S. person’s private internet account, under the guise of determining if the individual was passing classified information, without an authorized counterintelligence or law enforcement investigation and proper search or electronic surveillance authority.”

Also considered “misconduct” is “coaching a source or subject of an investigation prior to an intelligence polygraph examination in an effort to help the individual pass the polygraph.”

In one new provision, the regulation notes that intelligence personnel must ordinarily use government computers for official government business. But, it says, “if operational security so requires, such as to protect a Government computer from hacker retaliation, a … commander may approve nonattributable internet access” (sect. 1-9).

The 2005 regulation was released in its entirety this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Secrecy News.

See “U.S. Army Intelligence Activities,” Army Regulation 381-10, 22 November 2005 (2.7 MB PDF).

Update: The Army Regulation seems to assert that “Attorney General authorization” is an acceptable alternative to authorization from the FISA court for domestic intelligence surveillance, the New York Times noted. See “Deletions in Army Manual Raise Wiretapping Concerns” by Eric Lichtblau and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, January 14, 2007.

A new U.S. Navy instruction offers a “guide to the operation and administration of detention facilities.”

Detention means “the temporary holding of persons in custody in a detention facility pending a decision to officially charge them with a criminal offense. Detention is distinctly different from confinement that includes pretrial or post-trial confinement.”

See “Guide for the Operation and Administration of Detention Facilities” (pdf), OPNAV Instruction 1640.9A, December 11, 2006.

Another new Navy instruction concerns information assurance. See “Navy Implementation of Department of Defense Intelligence Information System (DODIIS) Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)” (pdf), OPNAV Instruction 5239.3, November 27, 2006.

A recent Congressional Research Service report observed irregularities in government spending on military space.

“Tracking the DOD space budget is extremely difficult since space is not identified as a separate line item in the DOD budget. Additionally, DOD sometimes releases only partial information (omitting funding for classified programs) or will suddenly release without explanation new figures for prior years that are quite different from what was previously reported.”

See “U.S. Military Space Programs: An Overview of Appropriations and Current Issues” (pdf), updated August 7, 2006.

Pending proposals to restructure Foreign Service personnel compensation policy are described in “The Foreign Service and a New Worldwide Compensation System” (pdf), updated November 16, 2006.

U.S. economic sanctions that are currently imposed against North Korea and the potential application of additional restrictions are addressed in another recent CRS report, provided courtesy of the National Committee on North Korea. See “North Korea: Economic Sanctions” (pdf), updated October 17, 2006.

The apparent murder of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko through polonium poisoning seemed like an outlandish innovation in crime. But it was not the first time that polonium had been deliberately administered to human subjects.

In 1944 at the University of Rochester in New York, “tracer amounts of radioactive polonium-210 were injected into four hospitalized humans and ingested by a fifth,” according to a 1995 retrospective account (pdf).

Four men and one women who were already suffering from a variety of cancers reportedly volunteered for the dangerous experiment. One patient died from his cancer six days after the injection.

See “Polonium Human-Injection Experiments,” Los Alamos Science, Number 23, 1995.

That polonium article appeared as a sidebar in a larger paper called “The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments” (pdf) by William Moss and Roger Eckhardt, which follows on the work of reporter Eileen Welsome, builds on the declassification activities of Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary, and complements the research of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. See the Moss and Eckhardt paper from Los Alamos Science here.

Polonium was classified in July 1945, the authors note, and given the code name “postum.”

The basic chemistry and physics of polonium were declassified in 1946. The fact that polonium-210 was used in nuclear weapon initiators was declassified in 1967, according to a Department of Energy historical account.

The flight test of a sea-based missile defense system in the Pacific was aborted yesterday after an interceptor missile failed to launch from an Aegis cruiser, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said.

It was the latest setback in an ambitious sea-based missile defense program that will cost more than one billion dollars in 2007.

“In developing a global ballistic missile defense (BMD) system, the Department of Defense (DOD) currently is modifying 18 Navy cruisers and destroyers for BMD operations, and has placed a large BMD radar — the Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX) — on a modified floating oil platform,” according to a new report of the Congressional Research Service.

But sea-based systems are still far from providing a satisfactory resolution to the quest for a reliable missile defense.

The new CRS report (which does not fail to mention that Aegis “is named after the mythological shield carried by Zeus”) is a superb presentation of the current state of sea-based missile defense. Full of hard-to-find details, the 37 page document asks and begins to answer a range of questions about the future of this program.

CRS does not release its reports to the public. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.

See “Sea-Based Missile Defense — Background and Issues for Congress,” December 4, 2006.

In a major new report (pdf) that could serve as an appendix to the Final Report of the 9/11 Commission, the Congressional Research Service performed a detailed assessment of the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations.

“The discussions herein are organized on the basis of policy themes that are at the core of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, rather than through a review of each numbered item set out in the Commission’s final report,” the 73 page CRS report says.

“Each section of the report summarizes the pertinent elements of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation relevant to the section’s policy theme. Then a review is made of responses made by the Congress to implement, in whole or in part, the given recommendation. Where appropriate, notice is taken of Executive branch actions regarding the policy matter.”

A copy of the report was obtained by Secrecy News.

See “9/11 Commission Recommendations: Implementation Status,” December 4, 2006.

Update: See, relatedly, a review of the 9/11 Commission recommendations by Christian Beckner of Homeland Security Watch who examines “what the 110th Congress could potentially do to make progress on each and every one of [them].”

Some other noteworthy new products of the Congressional Research Service that are not widely available to the public include the following (all pdf).

“Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing: U.S. Policy Development,” November 29, 2006.

“Homeland Security: Evolving Roles and Missions for United States Northern Command,” updated November 16, 2006.

“U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues,” updated October 17, 2006.

“National Emergency Powers,” updated November 13, 2006.

“Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Oversight Issues and Options for Congress,” November 30, 2006.

“The United States and Europe: Current Issues,” updated November 21, 2006.

The Public Interest Declassification Board was established by Congress in 2000 “to promote the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant United States national security decisions.” (FY 2001 Intelligence Authorization Act, Section 703).

Six years later, it has still done no such thing.

In its first practical test, members of Congress asked the Board to review the classification of two recent reports on pre-war Iraq intelligence to determine if more of the text could be disclosed.

But the Board concluded that it could not proceed without White House approval, which was not forthcoming.

This week, reported Rebecca Carr of Cox News, the Board asked Congress to modify its charter to make clear that White House approval is not required for this purpose.

See “Anti-secrecy board unable to gain traction” by Rebecca Carr, Cox News Service, December 8.

The Board will hold its next meeting on December 15 at the National Archives in Washington, DC.

A Florida company called Space Propulsion Systems, Inc. announced this week that it had successfully petitioned the U.S. Government to lift secrecy orders that had been imposed on two of its rocket propellant concepts.

Under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, the government may restrict the publication and dissemination of information about new inventions if their disclosure could be “detrimental to the national security.”

At the end of fiscal year 2006, there were 4942 invention secrecy orders in effect, according to statistics obtained by Secrecy News from the Patent and Trademark Office. There were 108 new orders imposed in FY 2006, while 81 existing orders were rescinded.

It is usually difficult if not impossible to identify patents and patent applications that were subject to invention secrecy orders which have been rescinded, though doing so would make an interesting construct for a historical research project.

But in this case, the applicant identified itself.

“Space Propulsion Systems, Inc. is pleased to announce that the Patent and Trademark Office of the Department of Commerce has rescinded the Secrecy Orders that had been imposed with respect to both its WREEM homogeneous propellant and the Supercritical Fluids fabricated Micro Fuel Cell composite rocket propellant in the light of guidance provided by U.S. defense agencies,” according to a company news release.

“Although SPS intends to work with the US Government in any way required to protect this technology, SPS believed that the Company needed to develop this technology for the sake of the US, the stockholders of SPS, and the Company. SPS therefore requested our patent attorneys to petition the US Government to rescind the Secrecy Orders on these products. It took over a year, but SPS was finally successful in this effort,” the release said.

Copies of Secrecy Order forms of various types (pdf) issued by the Patent Office are available here (courtesy of Michael Ravnitzky).

Some other background on invention secrecy may be found here.