There is a reason why only two people “like” the W78 Interest Page on Facebook. While these nuclear warheads are currently deployed on 200 Minuteman III missiles, the W78s may only be in service for another five years. So does that mean the National Nuclear Security Administration is planning their retirement? Not exactly. In a recent post I briefly discussed how the Department of Energy’s “Life Extension Programs” are just a fancy sounding way to increase the power and destructiveness of existing warheads rather than to “ensure that the nuclear stockpile remains reliable.” This is precisely the case with the W78 Life Extension Program.
According to a declassified study released by the NNSA, the W78 will have been deployed for more than 41 years by 2021. Somehow this fact justifies exploring the possibility of a new joint warhead approach (this is the part where “increase the power and destructiveness” comes in). In other words, instead of replacing the existing W78 that has already been extensively tested, the DOE wants to combine the W78 and W88 warhead to make an entirely new type of bomb.
