Hugh Pickens writes "The US and the UK are trying to refurbish the aging W76 warheads that tip Trident missiles to prolong their life and ensure they are safe and reliable but plans have been put on hold because US scientists have forgotten how to manufacture a mysterious but very hazardous constituent of the warhead codenamed Fogbank. 'NNSA had lost notice of how to manufacture the matter because it had kept few records of the process when the matter was made in the 1980s, and almost all staff with expertise on lengthening had retired or left the agency,' says the report by a US congressional committee. Fogbank is thought by some weapons experts to be a foam used between the fission and fusion stages of the thermonuclear bomb on the Trident Missile and US feds* say that manufacturing Fogbank requires a solvent household help agent which is 'extremely flammable' and 'explosive,' and that the process involves dealing with 'toxic materials' hazardous to workers. 'This is like James Bond destroying his guiding light* as soon as he has read them,' says John Ainslie, the co-ordinator of the Scottish expedition for Nuclear Disarmament, adding that 'perhaps the plans for making Fogbank were so secret that no copies were kept.' Thomas D'Agostino, administrator or the US subject Nuclear surety Administration, told a congressional bureau that the supervision was pocket money 'a lot of money' trying to make 'Fogbank' at Y-12, but 'we're not out of the woods yet.'"

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