Development+of+the+Atomic+Bomb

=The Development and Testing of the Atomic Bomb=

On July 16th ,1945 at 5:29 am, the first atomic bomb was tested in Trinity, New Mexico. The Bomb had been created using nuclear fission, or the splitting of atoms. It took more than a hundred brilliant scientists and three years to create a deadly weapon that would kill hundreds of thousands of people and change warfare forever.

The Manhattan Project
In 1942, the United States government founded a secret project called the Manhattan Project. The goal of this operation was to create a weapon that would end the second world war. The government choose to base this project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a desolate spot miles from any town. Top scientists from all over the USA and Europe were recruited to come and help build the bomb. The scientific director of the Manhattan Project was a man named Robert.J Oppenheimer. He oversaw all of the scientific aspects of the project while General Leslie Groves, the Primary Military leader, oversaw all of the security and military aspects of the project.

Building the Bomb
The materials used to make an atomic bomb were extremely rare and very costly. There were two designs for an atomic bomb, one made from uranium and one from plutonium. The plutonium bomb was the larger of the two and was nicknamed "Fat Man". The Uranium bomb was smaller and nicknamed " Little Boy". one of the bombs was made to implode on itself when it was dropped and the other was made to explode sort of like a gun. No one had ever built an atomic weapon before and no one knew if it was going to work,and if it didn't it would be a multi-million dollar fail. To make sure they didn't destroy the bomb if it didn't work, Oppenheimer ordered a giant metal container named " jumbo". It would protect the bomb if it fell and didn't explode.

Life on "The Hill"
Life for the scientist who were working on the atomic bomb sucked. Scientists came from all over the world, from places like Denmark,Germany,Poland,Hungry,italy,Austria,and England. And from universities like Harvard,Yale,California,Wisconsin,Stanford,Princeton,Columbia, and M.I.T. They usually were called by a government representative who told them that they had been assigned to a top secret project. They would not be told where or what it was but to pack up their family's belongings and go down to Albuquerque, New Mexico. From there they would go to Los Alamos National Laboratory, their new home. Housing was tight and unless you were an important general or project leader, you lived in a makeshift wooden dormitory. Water was scarce since the Lab was in the desert and no one had bathtubs, only showers. Many babies were born on the hill to families without addresses. KidsSp who graduated from the school in the Lab had trouble getting into collages because the school wasn't recognized by collages as a legit school. Scientists who left the Lab for any reason were shadowed by CIC agent( who controlled the security on the hill) to make sure that they didn't tell anyone anything about the bomb or were harmed in any way.

=The Trinity Test= The Trinity Test site was a deserted streatch of desert scattered with a few houses and ranches. It was far enough away from any city or town that they could test the bomb without if harming anybody, and close enough to Los Almos so that the scientists back at the Lab could communicate with the men who were out testing the Bomb. Once the people who lived there had been cleared from the area by the government; a base camp was set up in one of the deserted farm house's. This would be were the final touches to the bomb would be made and the core of the bomb put in the shell. To test the power of the bomb, the scientists did a pretest with 108 tons of TNT. The actual blast was 21 kilotons of TNT. To test the actual bomb a 100ft tall tower was built to hold and drop it. Very early on the morning of July 16th it began to rain. The scientists could not test the bomb if it was raining and it looked like the test would be called off. This was very bad because scientists were running out of time to get the bomb working. Finally the rain stopped and the plutonium bomb " Fat Man" bomb was tested. The uranium bomb " Little Boy" wasn't tested because uranium was very expesive and rare at the time. The blast from the bomb was so bright that it could be seen for miles. another effect of the bomb was that it created a new mineral called Trinitite. Trinitite is a green colored glass like substence. It was created by the effects of the bomb and the sand of the desert.

=Hiroshima and Nagasaki= On august 6th 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima in Japan. The used the uranium bomb which they had not tested before. The bomb killed about 100,000 people in the first two months after, then we dropped another bomb on the city of Nagasaki. This bomb was the plutonium bomb and it killed about 70,000 people. The bombs that the United States dropped on Japan are the only use of nuclear weapons in history.

media type="youtube" key="tr76hNngqts" height="174" width="248" This is a video of a atomic bomb test in 1955. =Links to other pages Pearl Harbor\ Enola Gay Japanese Re-Location Camps=

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