I had a Q Clearance back in the 90's. It's DOE equivalent to Secret / Top Secret for anything to do with special nuclear materials and/or nuclear weapons development and manufacture. You need a Q Clearance just to be unescorted around special nuclear materials - say plutonium or highly enriched uranium (U-235). For different programs, there are different access levels. For example, if you work with a particular aspect of warhead maintenance, you would need additional approvals / codes on your Q badge as well as additional background checks and probably a yearly lie detector test. Regardless of clearance level, everything is "need to know" only. Just because someone has a Q Clearance doesn't automatically give them access to say warhead schematics, for example. The level below Q is L. With an L clearance, access up to confidential restricted data is possible.
I had a Q Clearance back in the 90's. It's DOE equivalent to Secret / Top Secret for anything to do with special nuclear materials and/or nuclear weapons development and manufacture. You need a Q Clearance just to be unescorted around special nuclear materials - say plutonium or highly enriched uranium (U-235). For different programs, there are different access levels. For example, if you work with a particular aspect of warhead maintenance, you would need additional approvals / codes on your Q badge as well as additional background checks and probably a yearly lie detector test. Regardless of clearance level, everything is "need to know" only. Just because someone has a Q Clearance doesn't automatically give them access to say warhead schematics, for example. The level below Q is L. With an L clearance, access up to confidential restricted data is possible.
Interesting info and rare to get input from someone with hands-on experience like that. Thank you for sharing!