Research Paper On The Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project Short Report

The Manhattan Project was a top-secret project created by the United States Government during World War Two to research and develop the first atomic bomb. Over 600 Thousand people ended up working on the project, however, at the start, the project wasn’t viewed as necessary in FDR’s eyes, who was the president at the time, shortly followed by President Harry Truman. Nevertheless, the project slowly began. In 1938, German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann accidentally discovered nuclear fission when they observed that while overloaded with neutrons, a neutrally charged, very dense atomic particle, could actually split and create vast levels of energy. When it was done releasing this energy, it made

First, he formed the Uranium Committee. This group had military and scientific experts to figure out the possibility and efficacy of a nuclear chain reaction. This research was rather slow until 1941, when the MAUD committee, (which was basically the British counterpart to the Uranium Committee) warned the US of the looming threat of a Nazi atom bomb. They demanded to cooperate to speed up the development efforts. Before the actual creation of “The Manhattan Project,” much of the nuclear research actually occurred, mainly at various universities around the US. This research led to the discovery of Plutonium and its possible usage in weapons. At Columbia University, a pile of Uranium went critical, becoming the first self-sustaining chain reaction in the world. It produced vast amounts of energy and also generated Plutonium. (Atomic Heritage

Its first offices were in Manhattan, hence the name. In December of that same year, FDR funded the project with $500 million. Its headquarters would be moved to Washington, D.C. with various other locations around the nation. (Atomic Heritage Foundation) The weapons research lab was the most famous, being the Los Alamos location in New Mexico. The head of this lab was Robert Oppenheimer, a famous individual in the story of the first atomic bomb. At this facility, thousands of workers assembled the device with plans to test it there. On July 16th, the plan was executed when the world's first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert. It yielded roughly 20 kilotons of explosive power and created a crater that was 10 feet deep and 1,000 feet wide. (Atomic Heritage Foundation) The story of the project, unfortunately, does not have a happy ending as two more bombs would be used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to aid in the ending of WWII between the US and Japan. This demonstration was cruel at this point, as the Japanese were already close to surrender, adding an unnecessarily chaotic insult to an already devastating injury. The project came to an end when Hiroshima was hit with the “Little Boy,” atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project was a terrifying view of the power that one entity can have with enough resources and time, and the devastating results that could