Study adds up all of nuke projects' costs

Of the $5.48 trillion spent since 1940 for U.S. nuclear weapons development, billions were spent on some projects that came to the Nevada Test Site, according to a study of the atomic age.

Although the audit did not account for every dollar, some of the $7.2 billion was spent at the Test Site in programs that were canceled.

The figures are stated in 1996 dollars from a study, "Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons since 1940," published Tuesday by the Brookings Institute, a research center in Washington, D.C.

The total costs of nuclear weapons programs have never been added up before, and it took editor Stephen Schwartz four years to complete the study. Costs include money spent to invent, produce, test and deliver the weapons.

Nuclear experiments connected to the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, include the MX missile, nuclear rockets, peaceful uses of atomic explosions and a space-based reactor for the Strategic Defense Initiative, known as "Star Wars."

Ranked in the top 10 least accountable nuclear weapons programs are the MX missile at $3.4 billion and the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications (NERVA) at $2.7 billion.

The MX missile project, designed to shuttle warheads on a rail system through Nevada and Utah, was canceled after costs rocketed and state officials objected to the amount of land needed for it.

The NERVA project, based at the Test Site from 1962 to 1972, was designed to develop nuclear reactors as power plants for missiles and rockets. President Richard Nixon killed the project because it lacked a clear mission, the report said.

Runners-up -- costing in the millions -- are the peaceful nuclear explosions experiments, known as Project Plowshare and a space-based reactor project that was killed before it got started.

The plowshare experiments were conducted between 1958 and 1977. Scientists planned to use nuclear explosions to dig canals, move mountains and recover natural gas and oil deep underground for $700 million.

The SP-100 reactor for President Ronald Reagan's SDI program to shield the United States from enemy nuclear weapons never got off the ground.

The Brookings study said one reason for the high costs was rivalry between the Air Force, Army and Navy. Once one branch got nuclear weapons, the others wanted them, too.

Strategic deterrence had prevented nuclear conflict and probably conventional warfare in Europe, the authors said. They said national security could have been achieved more cheaply, but they did not say how much more cheaply.

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