It's not a cover, it's an explicit purpose of the facility: NIF uses lasers to heat and compress a small amount of hydrogen fuel with the goal of inducing nucl

It's not a cover, it's an explicit purpose of the facility: NIF uses lasers to heat and compress a small amount of hydrogen fuel with the goal of inducing nuclear fusion reactions. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain, and to support nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear weapons