The cumulative cost of U.S. nuclear weapons is nearly $5.5 trillion (in constant 1996 dollars), according to an unprecedented new study, "Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940," published by the Brookings Institution Press. This is up from the $4 trillion initially estimated in 1995 by the study due to more and better data collected over the years.

When the average projected future-year costs for dismantling nuclear weapons and managing and disposing of nuclear waste are included, the total rises to more than $5.8 trillion.

That amount of money, represented as a stack of $1 bills, would stretch more than 459,000 miles, to the Moon and nearly back again.

Other significant findings from the book include:

• From 1940 to 1996, expenditures for nuclear weapons exceeded the combined total federal spending on education, training, employment, and social services; agriculture; natural resources and the environment; general science and space research; community and regional development (including disaster relief); law enforcement; and energy production and regulation.
• 86% of U.S. nuclear weapons expenditures went toward deploying weapons and building and maintaining command, control, communications, and intelligence systems to facilitate their use. 7% of the total went toward developing and manufacturing the actual nuclear explosives-more than 70,000 warheads in all.
• Although the Cold War has ostensibly ended, U.S. nuclear weapons expenditures remain extraordinarily high. The U.S. currently spends $35 billion a year, or 14 percent of the defense budget, on these efforts. This amounts to more than $96 million a day. About $25 billion of the total goes toward operating and maintaining the nuclear arsenal, with the remainder used for managing and cleaning up nuclear waste, verifying arms control agreements, and conducting research into ballistic missile defenses.
• The U.S. now spends $4.5 billion a year on nuclear weapons research, development, testing and engineering through its "stockpile stewardship" program, up from the $3.7 billion annual average during the Cold War.

The costs of U.S. nuclear weapons are measured in more than just dollars. For decades, U.S. officials ignored or downplayed the serious health and environmental costs of producing and testing nuclear weapons.

By one measure, an estimated 70,000 to 800,000 people worldwide have died or will die prematurely from a fatal cancer attributable to fallout from U.S. atmospheric testing. Thousands more were harmed when government officials placed the production of nuclear weapons ahead of the health and safety of workers and surrounding communities.

In the U.S. today, vast areas of land remain severely contaminated. Where cleanup can be accomplished at all, it will require hundreds of billions of dollars and extend to 2070 and beyond.

"Nuclear deterrence is often compared to an insurance policy," says Schwartz. "But few homeowners would purchase insurance without knowing their annual premiums. Fewer still would purchase a policy that by design increases the likelihood of the very event for which one was insured. Yet that is precisely what is happening."