Why manhattan project was started

Groves was appointed to lead the project. Fermi and Szilard were still engaged in research on nuclear chain reactions, the process by which atoms separate and interact, now at the University of Chicago , and successfully enriching uranium to produce uranium Meanwhile, scientists like Glenn Seaborg were producing microscopic samples of pure plutonium, and Canadian government and military officials were working on nuclear research at several sites in Canada.

On December 28, , President Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project to combine these various research efforts with the goal of weaponizing nuclear energy.

Facilities were set up in remote locations in New Mexico , Tennessee and Washington , as well as sites in Canada, for this research and related atomic tests to be performed. Theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was already working on the concept of nuclear fission along with Edward Teller and others when he was named director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in northern New Mexico in Los Alamos Laboratory—the creation of which was known as Project Y—was formally established on January 1, The complex is where the first Manhattan Project bombs were built and tested.

On July 16, , in a remote desert location near Alamogordo, New Mexico, the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated—the Trinity Test —creating an enormous mushroom cloud some 40, feet high and ushering in the Atomic Age. With the Germans sustaining heavy losses in Europe and nearing surrender, the consensus among U. Meanwhile, the military leaders of the Manhattan Project had identified Hiroshima , Japan, as an ideal target for an atomic bomb, given its size and the fact that there were no known American prisoners of war in the area.

A forceful demonstration of the technology developed in New Mexico was deemed necessary to encourage the Japanese to surrender. The two bombs combined killed more than , people and leveled the two Japanese cities to the ground.

Following the end of the war, the United States formed the Atomic Energy Commission to oversee research efforts designed to apply the technologies developed under the Manhattan Project to other fields.

Ultimately, in , then-President Lyndon B. In Dayton, Ohio , the Manhattan Project tasked the Monsanto Chemical Company with separating and purifying the radioactive element polonium Po , which was to be used as the initiator for the atomic bombs.

Meanwhile, the th Composite Group of the Army Air Forces, which would drop the atomic bombs on Japan, trained at Wendover Airfield in Utah and in Cuba before shipping out to the launching point for the atomic bomb attacks at Tinian Island in the Pacific. It is estimated that more than , people worked on the project.

For a list of more Manhattan Project sites, please click here. Caption: The famous photo of the Trinity test, taken by Jack Aeby. On August 6, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Between 90, and , people are believed to have died from the bomb in the four-month period following the explosion.

Department of Energy has estimated that after five years there were perhaps , or more fatalities as a result of the bombing, while the city of Hiroshima has estimated that , people were killed directly or indirectly by the bomb's effects, including burns, radiation sickness, and cancer. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki — a kiloton plutonium device known as "Fat Man.

Total deaths by the end of may have reached 80, Japan surrendered on August The debate over the bomb — whether there should have been a test demonstration, whether the Nagasaki bomb was necessary, and more — continues to this day. Caption: Fat man. Finally, the Manhattan Project remains to this day a controversial subject.

In , however, the U. Database of Manhattan Project Veterans. Manhattan Project Timeline. Articles on Manhattan Project History.

Background Information: The U. As the direct descendent of the Manhattan Engineer District, the organization set up by the Army Corps of Engineers to develop and build the bomb, the Department continues to own and manage the Federal properties at most of the major Manhattan Project sites, including Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico.

In a national survey at the turn of the millennium, both journalists and the public ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb and the end of the Second World War as the top news stories of the twentieth century. The Manhattan Project is the story of some of the most renowned scientists of the century combining with industry, the military, and tens of thousands of ordinary Americans working at sites across the country to translate original scientific discoveries into an entirely new kind of weapon.

When the existence of this nationwide, secret project was revealed to the American people following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, most were astounded to learn that such a far-flung, government-run, top-secret operation existed, with physical properties, payroll, and a labor force comparable to the automotive industry.

The legacy of the Manhattan Project is immense. The advent of nuclear weapons not only helped bring an end to the Second World War but ushered in the atomic age and determined how the next war, the Cold War, would be fought.