E Manhattan Project Research Paper

     When the first atomic bomb was detonated in Alamogordo New Mexico on June 16, 1945, all the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project understood the great destructive power of radio-active isotopes. Although the atomic bomb was a very destructive force our world would not be as good without it. Because of the government funding involved in the project coupled with the need for an atom bomb, much research that otherwise may not have occurred took place in the US. The Manhattan project opened the door to nuclear advancements and applications.

The Manhattan Project was the code name 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. An atomic bomb is a weapon that uses the energy from a nuclear reaction called Fission for its destruction.

What was once a barren area full of trees and grass was soon a bustling city with over 30,000 people. Buildings and houses were around every corner with signs hanging up everywhere. Many of these signs were secret messages to the residents of Oak Ridge to keep what they saw, heard, and did there a secret. This entire city was built faster than any other and it was all for one reason; to build the most destructive weapon in the world. The atomic bomb.

In 1942 Major General Leslie Groves began direction of the Manhattan project, a 4 year project created to make nuclear weaponry. It was headquartered out of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but they had many locations across the United States and Canada. Some say that the Us should have dropped the Atomic bomb because of the unknown amount of people who could have died if we didn’t stop. Although, The United States shouldn’t have dropped the atomic bomb because of the cost of life, the health effects on survivors, and it pushed us into an arms race with Russia.

It became known that the German knew how to create an atomic bomb and FDR created a committee to study and create atomic bombs, named the Manhattan Project.The Manhattan Project was significant to the war because it led to the end of World War II and caused the Japanese to surrender to the Americans. The amount of people working together along with the cost and time which led to advancements in technology that was far ahead of any enemy. The creation of the bombs delivered a push in the advancement of science, innovation, designing, military and the entire of society into another age. It drew out the powerhouse that we consider today to be the United States of

Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombs tragically slaughtered 140,000 people. The miniscule town boasts one of the highest per capita incomes in the United States, and is almost 80 percent white. The Manhattan Project decades hence burgeoned into Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) a massive facility, easily 27,000 acres embedded in a New Mexico mountain plateau. When population estimations include farmers, farming communities, and Native Americans, some 38,000 Americans lived within a closer radius than Amarillo, Texas. Work at nuclear facilities was egregiously health hazardous throughout the 1950s and 1960s, leading Congress to pair the Radiation Compensation Exposure Act (1990) with an Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act in 2000.

An article written by Khan academy lays out the events leading up to the detonation of the atomic bombs. The article gives information on the Manhattan Project, which was the codename for the US government. Khan academy also writes about how the atomic bomb was built as well as how the atomic bombs ended WWII.

Even before the outbreak of War, the United States was concerned with a fascist regime in Europe researching in nuclear weapons. In retaliation, the United States began to fund an atomic weapon development program which became known as “The Manhattan Project” led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Over the next several years, the Manhattan project started obtaining key materials such as Uranium-235 and Plutonium and testing prototypes until they reached a working model (Coroner).

The Manhattan Project was one of the most notorious and catastrophic projects in United State history. A bomb that took years to perfect and made the U.S. gamble millions of dollars on new technology that wasn't certain to work. All the secretive facilities scattered all over the U.S. contributed to the creation of a futuristic weapon of mass destruction beyond anyone’s imagination. The atomic bomb caused thousands to die and left years of remnant radiations. The Manhattan Project will forever remain as one of the greatest “successful” catastrophic discoveries in human history.

Thesis Statement: The Manhattan Project was the American program for researching and developing the first atomic bombs because of the project it cost a lot of people their lives.

The Manhattan Project was a secret group that made the atomic bomb in the 1930s.

“ The atom bomb was no ‘great decision.’ It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.” This quote was said by Harry S. Truman the first President who used an atomic bomb. The program that was able to create this monstrous power was known as the Manhattan Project. Creating this weapon was their main priority. The United States was in the midst of World War 2. The atomic bomb is considered to be the main factor that ended that war. It was a race against the multiple enemies of the United States, to be the first to acquire this power and use it when necessary. The Manhattan Project was kept strictly confidential and, created the foundation of the future and more powerful nuclear weapons to come.

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.

The Manhattan project mainly took places in remote places in New Mexico, Washington, and Tennessee. There were also research facilities at Chicago and Berkeley colleges. There was a research pile called up-1 in Chicago were Enrico Fermi was conducting research on the exact amount of neutron radiation needed for a safe and controlled nuclear reaction. Cp-2 was built in Argonne, Illinois to move research away from heavily populated areas.

The research for the first Atomic bomb took place in the United States, by a group of nuclear engineers; the name of this research was called, “The Manhattan Project”. On July 16, 1945, the detonation of the first atomic bomb was tested near Los Alamos, New Mexico. As the atomic bomb was detonated, it sent shock-waves across the globe, which demonstrated that nuclear power would forever change the meaning of war.