The Manhattan Project: Building The Atomic Bomb

In 1938, three chemists discovered how to split the uranium atom. When the atom splits it releases a tremendous about of energy, enough to power a bomb. But when they made this huge discovery there was many more problems that had to be solved before they could use such a weapon. Albert Einstein learned that the Germans were succeeding in solving how to make such a weapon. Einstein and Enrico Fermi, who escaped Fascist Italy agreed that the President must be informed of the dangers of atomic technology in the hands of the Axis powers. Then Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt with his concerns in 1939. This letter helped initiate the U.S. effort to build an atomic bomb to fight the war. But in July 1940, the U.S. Army Intelligence
office denied Einstein the security clearance needed to work on the Manhattan Project. They didn’t want to risk him going back to Germany and tell them everything. Every scientist working on the project was not allowed to consult with Einstein. At first the research was based at only a few universities such as Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and the University of California at Berkeley.
A breakthrough occurred in December 1942 when Fermi led a group of physicists to produce the first controlled nuclear chain reaction under the grandstands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. There was two other major findings in 1940 and 1941. These findings demonstrated that the bomb was feasible and made building the bomb a top priority for the United States. In December 1941, the government launched the Manhattan Project. The name “Manhattan Project” was the codename of the America’s attempt to construct an atomic bomb during World War II. It was named after the Manhattan Engineer District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, because a lot of it’s earlier research was done in New York
City. The process of building the two atomic bombs was long and hard. The Manhattan project employed 120,000 people, and cost almost $2 billion. Although there were 120,000 Americans working on the project only a select group of scientist knew of the atomic bomb development. Vice president Truman never knew about the development of the bombs until he became president. The axis powers did not know what was going on with the development of the atomic bomb; there was a soviet spy in the project. The soviet spy was Klaus Fuchs, and he had become one of the few people who knew of the bombs. In 1945, Robert Oppenheimer tested the first atomic bomb. The bomb was tested at the Trinity Site and was attached to a tower 100 feet high. Many of the scientist were not prepared for the wrath of the bomb. The flash from the explosion could be seen 200 miles away, and the cloud of smoke was close to 40,000 feet high. The bomb had such force that houses windows within 100 miles shattered. The powerful explosion had created a crater a half-mile wide; the heat from the bomb turned the sand into glass. A bogus cover-up story was quickly released, explaining that a huge ammunition dump had just exploded in the desert. Soon word reached President Truman in Potsdam, Germany that the project was successful. President Truman authorized the use of the atom bombs to bring about Japan’s surrender in the Second World War.
Soon, the United States detonated the two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, killing 210,000 people. On August 6, 1945 an American B-29 bomber named the “Enola Gay” dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. On August 9, about 80,000 people died after the United States dropped a second bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Six days later, after the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, the Japanese government signed an unconditional surrender. World War II was over.
The development and use of the atomic bomb changed the nature of world warfare forever. Though the bombings of Japan remain the only wartime use of nuclear weapons, since 1945 the threat of nuclear war has loomed over international conflicts, promising a level of destruction never before seen in the
world.