WASHINGTON -- A key Air Force nuclear official said recently the United States might seek to improve its nuclear arsenal with such features as enhanced stealth or extended range -- ideas that could prove controversial on Capitol Hill (see GSN, Sept. 12).

Under a 'heavy modernization' effort, the United States could extend the service lives of the aging nuclear stockpile as well as retrofit weapons with updated technologies, according to Brig. Gen. Everett Thomas, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. (see GSN, Nov. 11).

'You could look at [a] low-observable aeroshell,' he said in a telephone interview, referring to a re-entry vehicle that carries a nuclear warhead to its target. 'You could look at extended range, because we now know how to do solid propellant much better than we did in the past. You could look at many things when you look at a modernization.'

Some lawmakers might not agree. ....