After spending more than $100 million on Atlas, the US Department of Energy (DOE) pulled the plug on 1 June, sacrificing the barely used pulsed-power machine, which studied nonnuclear materials at high pressure, temperature, and magnetic field, in favor of subcritical experiments, which use plutonium but stay clear of nuclear-explosion-causing chain reactions.
Atlas, which symmetrically implodes cylindrical targets, was built at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and was used there in 2001–02 before being moved to the Nevada Test Site (NTS; see Physics Today, July 2001, page 28). With delays—due in part to lab shutdowns in 2004 (see Physics Today, November 2004, page 31)—it took until last summer to bring the machine back on line.
The expected lifetime of the machine is 1000 experiments, but it’s been used for only a couple dozen, says LANL Atlas project director Robert Reinovsky. Since reopening at...
