
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) took a step toward forging another link in the nuclear-weapon supply chain of the 21st century late last year when it sought industry input about producing new quantities of high explosives for weapons. The agency has long foreseen the need for fresh nuclear-weapon-usable triaminotrinitrobenzene-based (TATB) energetics, and in October issued a sources sought in an “effort to understand other commercial opportunities to bolster the energetics industrial base and meet its production needs,” an agency…