Response to Comment on “the National Ignition Facility Laser Performance Status”

We appreciate Stephen Bodner's continuing interest in the performance of the NIF laser system. However, we find it necessary to disagree with the conclusions he reached in his comments [Appl. Opt.47, XXX (2008)] on “National Ignition Facility Laser Performance Status” [Appl. Opt.46, 3276 (2007)]. In fact, repeated and ongoing tests of the NIF beamlines have demonstrated that NIF can be expected not only to meet or exceed its requirements as established in the mid-1990s in the document National Ignition Facility Functional Requirements and Primary Criteria [Revision 1.3, Report NIF-LLNL-93-058 (1994)], but also to have the flexibility that provides for successfully meeting an ever expanding range of mission goals, including those of ignition.