The Race For The Atomic Bomb

During World War II, the Americans fought a two-front war, with pressure from both Japan and Germany. The United States, aware that Germany was threatening to build an atomic weapon, created a secret project to develop the technology first. Under the codename, the Manhattan Project, leading scientists carried out top secret research on fission and the technology needed to create the first atomic bomb. The immediate impact of the Manhattan Project was the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war in the Pacific. However, more important influences of this project can be seen following the detonation of the first bombs. The emergence of the United States as a world superpower following World War II, the tensions derived from the

The Manhattan Project was a secret problem barely anyone knew about.Many of the scientists that were involved with the Manhattan Project heard about the Axis powers gaining knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons that could destroy a whole nation.The Manhattan Project produced two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan.The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Hiroshima was chosen as the target for the first atomic bomb because it was a large port city with an army base. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki missed its target by over a mile.

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

“ 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.

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).

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 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.

A key factor in this argument is that the Japanese were issued warning of an imminent American attack through the Potsdam Declaration and informative leaflets. In the beginning of 1941, The Manhattan Project commenced where the US began constructing their plans to create an atomic bomb that could be used to defeat Nazi Germany. This atomic project was instigated at Los Alamos in the New Mexico Desert

The origins of the Manhattan Project go back to 1939, when Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard, who had moved to the U.S. in 1938 to conduct research at Columbia University, became convinced of the feasibility of using nuclear chain reactions to create new, powerful bombs. German scientists had just conducted a successful nuclear fission experiment, and based on those results, Szilard was able to demonstrate that uranium was capable of producing a nuclear chain reaction. Szilard noted that Germany

By mid-1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to construct pilot plants, laboratories, and other facilities so that the assembled scientists could carry out their mission. Initially, the Corps of Engineers’ Manhattan District was designated to manage the construction work, and in September 1942, General Leslie Groves took charge of all Army activities relating to the project. With the US formally committing to nuclear research due to the Second World War and domestic and international security concerns, a large scale American atomic project was initiated. It was known as the Manhattan Project, and research under this code name as conducted all over the country. Conceived, designed, built, and operated to work with fissile material in innovatory plants, it was an “extraordinary proof of US ascendancy in technology, engineering, industrial capacity and large-scale organization” . The original $6000 authorized for the Manhattan Project slowly grew to $2

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.

This project was established on May 12, 1942 by President FDR with the support of Canada and the United Kingdom. It was stationed out of Los Alamos, NM. Many of the soldiers thought that if they could pull of the execution of creating the bomb that it would help the Allies get ahead of the other countries in ending the war. Also, many of the people at the project believed that the testings of the bombs would not go well and seriously set back the U.S. (American Experience. Web. 19.June.

However, the projected losses were over 1 million, which was a staggering number. Meanwhile, America had been working on something in top secret. Project Manhattan was a top secret program created by the U.S. in 1939 after learning that Germany was also working on a similar project. The goal of the program was to design and construct a bomb. Over the next 6 years, scientists worked on creating the essential materials for nuclear fission–uranium-235 and plutonium (Pu-239). On July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project held its first successful test of an atomic device at a test site in New

In 1941, The United States began an atomic bomb program called the “Manhattan Project.” The main objective of the “Manhattan Project” was to research and build an atomic bomb before Germany could create and use one against the allied forces during World War II. German scientists had started a similar research program four years before the United States began so the scientists of the “Manhattan Project” felt a sense of urgency throughout their work (Wood “Men … Project”).

The Manhattan Project was put in place because the United States thought that the Germans were closer to completing a nuclear weapon than the U.S. was. The Manhattan Project was classified enough so that Truman did not know about it until he entered the presidency. The U.S poured two billion dollars into the Manhattan Project. Albert Einstein & Enrico Fermi were involved in the Manhattan project along with the other one hundred and twenty thousand employees. To create a bomb, uranium spins fast and then you come up with a different type of