DNDO: Congressional testimony by Vayl Oxford, acting director

Vayl Oxford who is acting director of the newly constituted Domestic Nuclear Detection Office testified to Congress on June 21, 2005 describing its goals and agenda, “Detecting Nuclear Weapons and Radiological Materials: How Effective Is Available Technology?”. Specifically, he presented to the House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack, Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology. This is such an important topic that it was heard three levels deep from Congress.

Based on this the DNDO is clearly focused on incremental improvements to the portal paradigm. Apparently they miss the critiques made in my paper titled "Nuclear Detection: Portals, fixed detectors, and NEST teams won’t work for shielded HEU on a national scale, so what next?". Vayl's testimony is worth a full read but I copied highlights below.

• "We will ultimately have the ability to fuse detection data and intelligence assessments in a near real-time environment to maintain an overall system and situational awareness."
• "Contrary to public perception that detection equipment is not sensitive enough, the actual primary limitation of today’s systems is one of discrimination. To overcome these limitations, the DNDO is currently investing substantial resources to the
  Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) program, which is focused on developing detectors which
  will be able to discriminate between naturally occurring radioactive materials and true threat
  materials. So, rather than alarming when any radiation is detected, whether it is emitting from granite tiles or a nuclear weapon, these new systems will be able to determine, “yes, there is radiation present, but the radiation signature matches that of naturally occurring radioactive materials and not special nuclear materials or radiological threat materials, and, therefore, is not a threat.”"
• "The ASP program was initiated in direct response to a CBP requirement for more capable radiation portal monitors to be deployed at the borders. The Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, or HSARPA, then issued two Broad Agency Announcements and awarded contracts to ten private industry participants for the development of these portals; these contracts have subsequently been transferred to the DNDO. These efforts will culminate late this summer with an extensive high-fidelity test and evaluation campaign to take place at the Radiological and Nuclear Countermeasures Test and Evaluation Complex (Rad/NucCTEC) at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), where the developed systems will be evaluated against one another, as well as currently-deployed systems. Based on the results of these tests, a limited number of vendors will be selected to begin initial low-rate production of detection systems to be deployed at the border."

-Sri

Comments

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Is there any information available on the dozen or so companies that are testing their nuclear detection imaging products at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site?

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