Robert Oppenheimer held conferences in Chicago in June 1942, and in Berkeley, California, in July, at which various engineers and physicists discussed nuclear bomb design issues. They chose a gun-type design in which two sub-critical masses would be brought together by firing a "bullet" into a "target".[2]Richard C. Tolman suggested an implosion-type nuclear weapon, but the proposal attracted little interest.[3]
The feasibility of a plutonium bomb was questioned in 1942. Wallace Akers, the director of the British "Tube Alloys" project, told James Bryant Conant on 14 November that James Chadwick had "concluded that plutonium might not be a practical fissionable material for weapons because of impurities".[4] Conant consulted Ernest Lawrence and Arthur Compton, who acknowledged that their scientists at Berkeley and Chicago, respectively, knew about the problem, but they could offer no ready solution. Conant informed Manhattan Project director Brigadier GeneralLeslie R. Groves Jr., who in turn assembled a special committee consisting of Lawrence, Compton, Oppenheimer, and McMillan to examine the issue. The committee concluded that any problems could be overcome simply by requiring higher purity.[5]
Oppenheimer reviewed his options in early 1943 and gave priority to the gun-type weapon,[3] but he created the E-5 Group at the Los Alamos Laboratory under Seth Neddermeyer to investigate implosion as a hedge against the threat of pre-detonation. Implosion-type bombs were determined to be significantly more efficient in terms of explosive yield per unit mass of fissile material in the bomb, because compressed fissile materials react more rapidly and therefore more completely. Nonetheless, it was decided that the plutonium gun would receive the bulk of the research effort, since it was the project with the least uncertainty involved. It was assumed that the uranium gun-type bomb could be easily adapted from it.[6]
The gun-type and implosion-type designs were codenamed "Thin Man" and "Fat Man", respectively. These code names were created by Robert Serber, a former student of Oppenheimer's who worked on the Manhattan Project. He chose them based on their design shapes; the Thin Man was a very long device, and the name came from the Dashiell Hammett detective novel The Thin Man and series of movies. The Fat Man was round and fat and was named after Sydney Greenstreet's character in Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. The Little Boy uranium gun-type design came later and was named only to contrast with the Thin Man.[7] Los Alamos's Thin Man and Fat Man code names were adopted by the United States Army Air Forces in their involvement in the Manhattan Project, codenamed Silverplate. A cover story was devised that Silverplate was about modifying a Pullman car for use by President Franklin Roosevelt (Thin Man) and United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Fat Man) on a secret tour of the United States.[8] Air Forces personnel used the code names over the phone to make it sound as though they were modifying a plane for Roosevelt and Churchill.[9]
Development
Neddermeyer discarded Serber and Tolman's initial concept of implosion as assembling a series of pieces in favor of one in which a hollow sphere was imploded by an explosive shell. He was assisted in this work by Hugh Bradner, Charles Critchfield, and John Streib. L. T. E. Thompson was brought in as a consultant and discussed the problem with Neddermeyer in June 1943. Thompson was skeptical that an implosion could be made sufficiently symmetric. Oppenheimer arranged for Neddermeyer and Edwin McMillan to visit the National Defense Research Committee's Explosives Research Laboratory near the laboratories of the Bureau of Mines in Bruceton, Pennsylvania (a Pittsburgh suburb), where they spoke to George Kistiakowsky and his team. But Neddermeyer's efforts in July and August at imploding tubes to produce cylinders tended to produce objects that resembled rocks. Neddermeyer was the only person who believed that implosion was practical, and only his enthusiasm kept the project alive.[10]
Replica mockup of a Fat Man displayed in the National Museum of the United States Air Force, beside the Bockscar B-29 that dropped the original device – black liquid asphalt sealant was sprayed over the original bomb casing's seams, simulated on the mockup.
Oppenheimer brought John von Neumann to Los Alamos in September to take a fresh look at implosion. After reviewing Neddermeyer's studies, and discussing the matter with Edward Teller, von Neumann suggested the use of high explosives in shaped charges to implode a sphere, which he showed could not only result in a faster assembly of fissile material than was possible with the gun method, but greatly reduce the amount of material required because of the resulting higher density.[11] The idea that, under such pressures, the plutonium metal would be compressed came from Teller, whose knowledge of how dense metals behaved under heavy pressure was influenced by his pre-war theoretical studies of the Earth's core with George Gamow.[12] The prospect of more-efficient nuclear weapons impressed Oppenheimer, Teller, and Hans Bethe, but they decided that an expert on explosives would be required. Kistiakowsky's name was immediately suggested, and Kistiakowsky was brought into the project as a consultant in October.[11]
The implosion project remained a backup until April 1944, when experiments by Emilio G. Segrè and his P-5 Group at Los Alamos on the newly reactor-produced plutonium from the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge and the B Reactor at the Hanford Site showed that it contained impurities in the form of the isotopeplutonium-240. This has a far higher spontaneous fission rate and radioactivity than plutonium-239. The cyclotron-produced isotopes, on which the original measurements had been made, held much lower traces of plutonium-240. Its inclusion in reactor-bred plutonium appeared unavoidable. This meant that the spontaneous fission rate of the reactor plutonium was so high that pre-detonation was highly likely and that the bomb would blow itself apart during the initial formation of critical mass, creating a "fizzle."[13] The distance required to accelerate the plutonium to speeds where pre--detonation would be less likely would need a gun barrel too long for any existing or planned bomber. The only way to use plutonium in a workable bomb was therefore implosion.[14]
The impracticability of a gun-type bomb using plutonium was agreed at a meeting in Los Alamos on 17 July 1944. All gun-type work in the Manhattan Project was re-directed towards the Little Boy, enriched uranium gun design, and the Los Alamos Laboratory was reorganized with almost all of the research focused on the problems of implosion for the Fat Man bomb.[14] The idea of using shaped charges as three-dimensional explosive lenses came from James L. Tuck and was developed by von Neumann.[15] The success of the bomb relied on absolute precision in all of the plates moving inward at the same time.[16] To overcome the difficulty of synchronizing multiple detonations, Luis Alvarez and Lawrence Johnston invented exploding-bridgewire detonators to replace the less precise primacord detonation system.[15]Robert Christy is credited with doing the calculations that showed how a solid subcritical sphere of plutonium could be compressed to a critical state, greatly simplifying the task, since earlier efforts had attempted the more-difficult compression of a hollow spherical shell.[17] After Christy's report, the solid-plutonium core weapon was referred to as the "Christy Gadget".[18]
The task of the metallurgists was to determine how to cast plutonium into a sphere. The difficulties became apparent when attempts to measure the density of plutonium gave inconsistent results. At first contamination was believed to be the cause, but it was soon determined that there were multiple allotropes of plutonium.[19] The brittle α phase that exists at room temperature changes to the plastic β phase at higher temperatures. Attention then shifted to the even more malleable δ phase that normally exists in the 300–450°C (570–840°F) range. It was found that this was stable at room temperature when alloyed with aluminum, but aluminum emits neutrons when bombarded with alpha particles, which would exacerbate the pre-ignition problem. The metallurgists then hit upon a plutonium–gallium alloy, which stabilized the δ phase and could be hot pressed into the desired shape. They found it easier to cast hemispheres than spheres. The core consisted of two hemispheres with a ring with a triangular cross-section between them to keep them aligned and prevent jets forming. As plutonium was found to corrode readily, the sphere was coated with nickel.[20][21]
A pumpkin bomb (Fat Man test unit) being raised from the pit into the bomb bay of a B-29 for bombing practice during the weeks before the attack on Nagasaki
The size of the bomb was constrained by the available aircraft, which were investigated for suitability by Norman Foster Ramsey. The only Allied aircraft considered capable of carrying the Fat Man without major modification were the British Avro Lancaster and the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress.[22][23][24] At the time, the B-29 represented the epitome of bomber technology with significant advantages in maximum takeoff weight, range, speed, flight ceiling, and survivability. Without the availability of the B-29, dropping the bomb would likely have been impossible. However, this still constrained the bomb to a maximum length of 11 feet (3.4m), width of 5 feet (1.5m) and weight of 20,000 pounds (9,100kg). Removing the bomb rails allowed a maximum width of 5.5 feet (1.7m).[23]
Drop tests began in March 1944 and resulted in modifications to the Silverplate aircraft due to the weight of the bomb.[25] High-speed photographs revealed that the tail fins folded under the pressure, resulting in an erratic descent. Various combinations of stabilizer boxes and fins were tested on the Fat Man shape to eliminate its persistent wobble until an arrangement dubbed a "California Parachute" was approved, a cubical open-rear tail box outer surface with eight radial fins inside of it, four angled at 45 degrees and four perpendicular to the line of fall holding the outer square-fin box to the bomb's rear end.[22] In drop tests in early weeks, the Fat Man missed its target by an average of 1,857 feet (566m), but this was halved by June as the bombardiers became more proficient with it.[26]
The early Y-1222 model Fat Man was assembled with some 1,500 bolts.[27][28] This was superseded by the Y-1291 design in December 1944. This redesign work was substantial, and only the Y-1222 tail design was retained.[28] Later versions included the Y-1560, which had 72 detonators; the Y-1561, which had 32; and the Y-1562, which had 132. There were also the Y-1563 and Y-1564, which were practice bombs with no detonators at all.[29] The final wartime Y-1561 design was assembled with just 90 bolts.[27] On 16 July 1945, a Y-1561 model Fat Man, known as the Gadget, was detonated in a test explosion at a remote site in New Mexico, known as the "Trinity" test. It gave a yield of about 25 kilotonnes (100TJ).[30] Some minor changes were made to the design as a result of the Trinity test.[31]Philip Morrison recalled that "There were some changes of importance... The fundamental thing was, of course, very much the same."[32][33]
Interior
The bomb was 128.375 inches (3.2607m) long and 60.25 inches (153.0cm) in diameter. It weighed 10,265 pounds (4,656kg).[34]
Fat Man external schematic. 1. One of four AN 219 contact fuzes 2. Archie radar antenna 3. Plate with batteries (to detonate charge surrounding nuclear components) 4. X-Unit, a firing set placed near the charge 5. Hinge fixing the two ellipsoidal parts of the bomb 6. Physics package (see details below) 7. Plate with instruments (radars, baroswitches, and timers) 8. Barotube collector 9. California Parachute tail assembly (0.20-inch [5.1mm] aluminum sheet)
Fat Man internal schematic
Assembly
Cross section of the Fat Man "physics package". See description and colors in this section for details.Fat Man's "physics package" nuclear device about to be encasedFat Man on its transport carriage, with liquid asphalt sealant applied over the casing's seamsPreserved Tinian "bomb pit#2", where Fat Man was loaded aboard Bockscar
The plutonium pit[27] was 3.62 inches (92mm) in diameter and contained an "Urchin" modulated neutron initiator that was 0.8 inches (20mm) in diameter. The depleted uraniumtamper was an 8.75-inch-diameter (222mm) sphere, surrounded by a 0.125-inch-thick (3.2mm) shell of boron-impregnated plastic. The plastic shell had a 5-inch-diameter (130mm) cylindrical hole running through it, like the hole in a cored apple, in order to allow insertion of the pit as late as possible. The missing tamper cylinder containing the pit could be slipped in through a hole in the surrounding 18.5-inch-diameter (470mm) aluminum pusher.[35] The pit was warm to the touch, emitting 2.4 W/kg-Pu, about 15 W for the 6.19-kilogram (13.6lb) core.[36]
The explosion symmetrically compressed the plutonium to twice its normal density before the "Urchin" added free neutrons to initiate a fissionchain reaction.[37]
The medium-density aluminum "pusher" transfers the imploding shock-wave from the low-density explosive to the high-density uranium, minimizing undesirable turbulence.[39] The shock-wave then compresses the inner components, passing through a...
...boron-plastic shell intended to prevent pre-detonation of the bomb by stray neutrons.[39] The shock-wave reaches the center of the bomb, where the...
...beryllium–210Po "Urchin" is crushed,[40] pushing the two metals together and thereby releasing a burst of neutrons into the compressed...
...natural-uranium "tamper" (inertial confinement). The tamper also reflects neutrons back into the pit, accelerating the chain reaction. If and when sufficient fast neutrons are produced, the tamper itself undergoes fission, accounting for up to 30% of the weapon's yield.[42]
The result was the fission of about 1 kilogram (2.2lb) of the 6.19 kilograms (13.6lb) of plutonium in the pit, or about 16% of the fissile material present.[43][44] The detonation released the energy equivalent to the detonation of 21 kilotons of TNT or 88 terajoules.[45] About 30% of the yield came from fission of the uranium tamper.[42]
Mushroom cloud after Fat Man exploded over Nagasaki on 9 August 1945
The first plutonium core was transported with its polonium-beryllium modulated neutron initiator in the custody of Project Alberta courier Raemer Schreiber in a magnesium field carrying case designed for the purpose by Philip Morrison. Magnesium was chosen because it does not act as a tamper.[37] It left Kirtland Army Air Field on a C-54 transport aircraft of the 509th Composite Group's 320th Troop Carrier Squadron on 26 July and arrived at North Field on Tinian on 28 July. Three Fat Man high-explosive pre-assemblies (designated F31, F32, and F33) were picked up at Kirtland on 28 July by three B-29s: Luke the Spook and Laggin' Dragon from the 509th Composite Group's 393d Bombardment Squadron, and another from the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit. The cores were transported to North Field, arriving on 2 August, when F31 was partly disassembled in order to check all its components. F33 was expended near Tinian during a final rehearsal on 8 August. F32 presumably would have been used for a third attack or its rehearsal.[46]
On 7 August, the day after the bombing of Hiroshima, Rear AdmiralWilliam R. Purnell, CommodoreWilliam S. Parsons, Tibbets, GeneralCarl Spaatz and Major GeneralCurtis LeMay met on Guam to discuss what should be done next.[47] Since there was no indication of Japan surrendering,[48] they decided to proceed with their orders and drop another bomb. Parsons said that Project Alberta would have it ready by 11 August, but Tibbets pointed to weather reports indicating poor flying conditions on that day due to a storm and asked if the bomb could be made ready by 9 August. Parsons agreed to try to do so.[47][49]
Fat Man F31 was assembled on Tinian by Project Alberta personnel,[46] and the physics package was fully assembled and wired. It was placed inside its ellipsoidal aerodynamic bombshell, which was painted mustard yellow, and wheeled out, where it was signed by nearly 60 people, including Purnell, Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell, and Parsons.[50][51] The acronym "JANCFU" was stenciled on the bomb's nose, standing for "Joint Army-Navy-Civilian Fuckup", a play on the acronym "SNAFU".[51][52][53] It was then wheeled to the bomb bay of the B-29 Superfortress named Bockscar after the plane's command pilot Captain Frederick C. Bock,[54] who flew The Great Artiste with his crew on the mission. Bockscar was flown by Major Charles W. Sweeney and his crew, with Commander Frederick L. Ashworth from Project Alberta as the weaponeer in charge of the bomb.[55]
Detonation of the Mark III 'Fat Man' and ensuing mushroom cloud.Hypocenter of Fat Man Atomic bomb in Nagasaki
Bockscar lifted off at 03:47 on 9 August 1945, with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki the secondary target. The weapon was already armed but with the green electrical safety plugs still engaged. Ashworth changed them to red after ten minutes so that Sweeney could climb to 17,000 feet (5,200m) in order to get above storm clouds.[56] During the pre-flight inspection of Bockscar, the flight engineer notified Sweeney that an inoperative fuel transfer pump made it impossible to use 640 US gallons (2,400L) of fuel carried in a reserve tank. This fuel would still have to be carried all the way to Japan and back, consuming still more fuel. Replacing the pump would take hours; moving the Fat Man to another aircraft might take just as long and was dangerous as well, as the bomb was live. Colonel Paul Tibbets and Sweeney therefore elected to have Bockscar continue the mission.[57]
Effects of the Fat Man's detonation on Nagasaki
Kokura was obscured by clouds and drifting smoke from fires started by a major firebombing raid by 224 B-29s on nearby Yahata the previous day. This covered 70% of the area over Kokura, obscuring the aiming point. Three bomb runs were made over the next 50 minutes, burning fuel and repeatedly exposing the aircraft to the heavy defenses of Yahata, but the bombardier was unable to drop visually. By the time of the third bomb run, Japanese anti-aircraft fire was getting close; Second Lieutenant Jacob Beser was monitoring Japanese communications, and he reported activity on the Japanese fighter direction radio bands.[58]
Sweeney then proceeded to the alternative target of Nagasaki. It was obscured by clouds as well, and Ashworth ordered Sweeney to make a radar approach. At the last minute, however, bombardier[56] Captain Kermit K. Beahan[55] found a hole in the clouds. The Fat Man was dropped and exploded at 11:02 local time, following a 43-second free-fall, at an altitude of about 1,650 feet (500m).[56] There was poor visibility due to cloud cover, and the bomb missed its intended detonation point by almost two miles, so the damage was somewhat less extensive than that in Hiroshima.
An estimated 35,000–40,000 people were killed outright by the bombing at Nagasaki. A total of 60,000–80,000 fatalities resulted, including from long-term health effects, the strongest of which was leukemia with an attributable risk of 46% for bomb victims.[59] Others died later from related blast and burn injuries, and hundreds more from radiation illnesses from exposure to the bomb's initial radiation.[60] Most of the direct deaths and injuries were among munitions or industrial workers.[61]
Mitsubishi's industrial production in the city was severed by the attack; the dockyard would have produced at 80 percent of its full capacity within three to four months, the steelworks would have required a year to get back to substantial production, the electric works would have resumed some production within two months and been back at capacity within six months, and the arms plant would have required 15 months to return to 60 to 70 percent of former capacity. The Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works, which manufactured the Type 91 torpedoes released in the attack on Pearl Harbor, was destroyed in the blast.[61][62]
Post-war development
Crossroads-Baker, 23-kilotons.
After the war, two Y-1561 Fat Man bombs were used in the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The first was known as Gilda after Rita Hayworth's character in the 1946 movie Gilda, and it was dropped by the B-29 Dave's Dream; it missed its aim point by 710 yards (650m). The second bomb was nicknamed Helen of Bikini and was placed without its tail fin assembly in a steel caisson made from a submarine's conning tower; it was detonated 90 feet (27m) beneath the landing craft USS LSM-60. The two weapons yielded about 23 kilotonnes (96TJ) each.[63]
The Los Alamos Laboratory and the Army Air Forces had already commenced work on improving the design. The North American B-45 Tornado, Convair XB-46, Martin XB-48, and Boeing B-47 Stratojet bombers had bomb bays sized to carry the Grand Slam, which was much longer but not as wide as the Fat Man. The only American bombers that could carry the Fat Man were the B-29 and the Convair B-36. In November 1945, the Army Air Forces asked Los Alamos for 200 Fat Man bombs, but there were only two sets of plutonium cores and high-explosive assemblies at the time. The Army Air Forces wanted improvements to the design to make it easier to manufacture, assemble, handle, transport, and stockpile. The wartime Project W-47 was continued, and drop tests resumed in January 1946.[64]
Sandstone-Yoke, 49-kilotons; utilized a newly designed 'levitated-pit' to increase yield efficiency.
The Mark III Mod 0 Fat Man was ordered into production in mid-1946. High explosives were manufactured by the Salt Wells Pilot Plant, which had been established by the Manhattan Project as part of Project Camel, and a new plant was established at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant. Mechanical components were made or procured by the Rock Island Arsenal; electrical and mechanical components for about 50 bombs were stockpiled at Kirtland Army Air Field by August 1946, but only nine plutonium cores were available. Production of the Mod 0 ended in December 1948, by which time there were still only 53 cores available. It was replaced by improved versions known as Mods 1 and 2 which contained a number of minor changes, the most important of which was that they did not charge the X-Unit firing system's capacitors until released from the aircraft. The Mod 0s were withdrawn from service between March and July 1949, and by October they had all been rebuilt as Mods 1 and 2.[65] Some 120 Mark III Fat Man units were added to the stockpile between 1947 and 1949,[66] when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb.[67] The Mark III Fat Man was retired in 1950.[66][68]
A nuclear strike would have been a formidable undertaking in the post-war 1940s due to the limitations of the Mark III Fat Man. The lead-acid batteries which powered the fuzing system remained charged for only 36 hours, after which they needed to be recharged. To do this meant disassembling the bomb, and recharging took 72 hours. The batteries had to be removed in any case after nine days or they corroded. The plutonium core could not be left in for much longer, because its heat damaged the high explosives. Replacing the core also required the bomb to be completely disassembled and reassembled. This required about 40 to 50 men and took between 56 and 72 hours, depending on the skill of the bomb assembly team, and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project had only three teams in June 1948.
Espionage information procured by Klaus Fuchs, Theodore Hall, and David Greenglass led to the first Soviet device "RDS–1" (above), which closely resembled Fat Man, even in its external shape.
The only aircraft capable of carrying the bomb were Silverplate B-29s, and the only group equipped with them was the 509th Bombardment Group at Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico. They would first have to fly to Sandia Base to collect the bombs and then to an overseas base from which a strike could be mounted.[69] In March 1948, during the Berlin Blockade, all the assembly teams were in Eniwetok for the Operation Sandstone test, and the military teams were not yet qualified to assemble atomic weapons.[70]
In June 1948, General Omar Bradley, Major General Alfred Gruenther and Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe visited Sandia and Los Alamos to be shown the "special requirements" of atomic weapons. Gruenther asked Brigadier General Kenneth Nichols (hosting): "When are you going to show us the real thing? Surely this laboratory monstrosity is not the only type of atomic bomb we have in stockpile?"[71] Nichols told him that better weapons would soon become available. After the "astonishingly good" results of Operation Sandstone were available, stockpiling of improved weapons began.[71]
The Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon was based closely on Fat Man's design thanks to spies Klaus Fuchs, Theodore Hall, and David Greenglass, who provided them with secret information concerning the Manhattan Project and Fat Man. It was detonated on 29 August 1949 as part of Operation "First Lightning".[72][73][74]
↑ Wellerstein, Alex. "You don't know Fat Man". Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
↑ The most significant change involved the use of an anti-jet ring within the plutonium pit, described earlier. In the Trinity Gadget, the possibility of a fine jet of neutrons going between the seams of the pit was avoided by adding some crumpled gold foil around the initiator. Additionally, in the Trinity Gadget, the pit was electroplated with silver, whereas with the later Fat Man bombs, nickel was used.
↑ "World War II: the battle for Kiska (pt 2). - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 28 July 2024. It was the Battle of Kiska that would lead Time magazine to create the acronym, JANFU (joint army-navy foul-up) to complement the earlier SNAFU (situation normal, all fouled-up).
↑ Gaulkin, Thomas (5 August 2022). "The harrowing story of the Nagasaki bombing mission". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Retrieved 28 July 2024. It even had a code: JANCFU for "joint army navy combined foul up" which was a cousin of "SNAFU," military vernacular for "situation normal, all f***ed up."
1 2 Nuke-Rebuke: Writers & Artists Against Nuclear Energy & Weapons (The Contemporary anthology series). The Spirit That Moves Us Press. 1 May 1984. pp.22–29.
Little Boy is the name of the type of atomic bomb used in the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group, and Captain Robert A. Lewis. It exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT (63 TJ) and had an explosion radius of approximately 1.3 kilometers which caused widespread death across the city. The Hiroshima bombing was the second nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity nuclear test.
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army program was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys, and subsumed the program from the American civilian Office of Scientific Research and Development. The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$2 billion, over 80 percent of which was for building and operating the plants that produced the fissile material. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the US, the UK, and Canada.
Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. MWT on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, nicknamed "The Gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Concerns about whether the complex Fat Man design would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, possibly inspired by the poetry of John Donne.
Nuclear Weapons Design are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types:
William Sterling Parsons was an American naval officer who worked as an ordnance expert on the Manhattan Project during World War II. He is best known for being the weaponeer on the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. To avoid the possibility of a nuclear explosion if the aircraft crashed and burned on takeoff, he decided to arm the bomb in flight. While the aircraft was en route to Hiroshima, Parsons climbed into the cramped and dark bomb bay, and inserted the powder charge and detonator. He was awarded the Silver Star for his part in the mission.
Operation Sandstone was a series of nuclear weapon tests in 1948. It was the third series of American tests, following Trinity in 1945 and Crossroads in 1946, and preceding Ranger. Like the Crossroads tests, the Sandstone tests were carried out at the Pacific Proving Grounds, although at Enewetak Atoll rather than Bikini Atoll. They differed from Crossroads in that they were conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission, with the armed forces having only a supporting role. The purpose of the Sandstone tests was also different: they were primarily tests of new bomb designs rather than of the effects of nuclear weapons. Three tests were carried out in April and May 1948 by Joint Task Force 7, with a work force of 10,366 personnel, of whom 9,890 were military.
Charles William Sweeney was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and the pilot who flew Bockscar carrying the Fat Man atomic bomb to the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Separating from active duty at the end of World War II, he later became an officer in the Massachusetts Air National Guard as the Army Air Forces transitioned to an independent United States Air Force, eventually rising to the rank of major general.
Seth Henry Neddermeyer was an American physicist who co-discovered the muon, and later championed the implosion-type nuclear weapon while working on the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II.
George Bogdanovich Kistiakowsky was a Ukrainian-American physical chemistry professor at Harvard who participated in the Manhattan Project and later served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Science Advisor.
The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District; "Manhattan" gradually became the codename for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion. Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and producing the fissionable materials, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons.
Project Alberta, also known as Project A, was a section of the Manhattan Project which assisted in delivering the first nuclear weapons in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
"Thin Man" was the code name for a proposed plutonium-fueled gun-type nuclear bomb that the United States was developing during the Manhattan Project. Its development was abandoned in 1944 after it was discovered that the spontaneous fission rate of nuclear reactor-bred plutonium was too high for use in a gun-type design due to the high concentration of the isotope plutonium-240.
Silverplate was the code reference for the United States Army Air Forces' participation in the Manhattan Project during World War II. Originally the name for the aircraft modification project which enabled a B-29 Superfortress bomber to drop an atomic weapon, "Silverplate" eventually came to identify the training and operational aspects of the program as well. The original directive for the project had as its subject line "Silver Plated Project," but continued usage of the term shortened it to "Silverplate".
Pumpkin bombs were conventional aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II. It was a close replication of the Fat Man plutonium bomb with the same ballistic and handling characteristics, but it used non-nuclear conventional high explosives. It was mainly used for testing and training purposes, which included combat missions flown with pumpkin bombs by the 509th Composite Group. The name "pumpkin bomb" was the term used in official documents from the large, fat ellipsoidal shape of the munition casing instead of the more usual cylindrical shape of other bombs, intended to enclose the Fat Man's spherical "physics package".
The uranium hydride bomb was a variant design of the atomic bomb first suggested by Robert Oppenheimer in 1939 and advocated and tested by Edward Teller. It used deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, as a neutron moderator in a uranium-deuterium ceramic compact. Unlike all other fission-bomb types, the concept relies on a chain reaction of slow nuclear fission. Bomb efficiency was harmed by the slowing of neutrons since the latter delays the reaction, as delineated by Rob Serber in his 1992 extension of the original Los Alamos Primer.
Bockscar, sometimes called Bock's Car, is the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped a Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the second – and most recent – nuclear attack in history. One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th, Bockscar was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Bellevue, Nebraska, at what is now Offutt Air Force Base, and delivered to the United States Army Air Forces on 19 March 1945. It was assigned to the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, in April and was named after captain Frederick C. Bock.
In nuclear weapon design, the pit is the core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it. Some weapons tested during the 1950s used pits made with uranium-235 alone, or as a composite with plutonium. All-plutonium pits are the smallest in diameter and have been the standard since the early 1960s. The pit is named after the hard core found in stonefruit such as peaches and apricots.
The Los Alamos Laboratory, also known as Project Y, was a secret laboratory established by the Manhattan Project and operated by the University of California during World War II. Its mission was to design and build the first atomic bombs. Robert Oppenheimer was its first director, serving from 1943 to December 1945, when he was succeeded by Norris Bradbury. In order to enable scientists to freely discuss their work while preserving security, the laboratory was located on the isolated Pajarito Plateau in Northern New Mexico. The wartime laboratory occupied buildings that had once been part of the Los Alamos Ranch School.
John Coster-Mullen was an American industrial photographer, truck driver and nuclear archaeologist who played an important role in creating a public record of the design of the first atomic bombs. He is known for his critically-acclaimed self-published book Atom Bombs: The Top Secret, Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man.
The Third Shot was the first of a series of American nuclear weapons intended for use against Japan in World War II, subsequent to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was intended to be used on 19 August 1945, ten days after the bombing of Nagasaki. It was never used, as the surrender of Japan on 15 August brought the war to a close first.
Bowen, Lee (1959). Vol. I, Project Silverplate 1943–1946(PDF). The History of Air Force Participation in the Atomic Energy Program, 1943–1953. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Air Force, Air University Historical Liaison Office. Archived from the original(PDF) on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
Campbell, Richard H. (2005). The Silverplate Bombers: A History and Registry of the Enola Gay and Other B-29s Configured to Carry Atomic Bombs. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN978-0-7864-2139-8. OCLC58554961.
Coster-Mullen, John (2012). Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man. Waukesha, Wisconsin: J. Coster-Mullen. ASINB0006S2AJ0. OCLC298514167.
Hansen, Chuck (1995). Volume V: US Nuclear Weapons Histories. Swords of Armageddon: US Nuclear Weapons Development since 1945. Sunnyvale, California: Chukelea Publications. ISBN978-0-9791915-0-3. OCLC231585284.
Russ, Harlow W. (1990). Project Alberta: The Preparation of Atomic Bombs For Use in World War II. Los Alamos, New Mexico: Exceptional Books. ISBN978-0-944482-01-8. OCLC24429257.
Sweeney, Charles; Antonucci, James A.; Antonucci, Marion K. (1997). War's End: An Eyewitness Account of America's Last Atomic Mission. Quill Publishing. ISBN978-0-380-78874-3.
Samuels, David (23 January 2009) [15 December 2008]. "Atomic John: A truck driver uncovers secrets about the first nuclear bombs". A Reporter at Large (column). The New Yorker. Essay and interview with John Coster-Mullen, the author of Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man, 2003 (first printed in 1996, self-published), considered a definitive text about Fat Man; illustrations from which are used in the Physics Package section above.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
