The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb; DOE/HR-0096

28 cm, vii, [1], 66, [2] pages. Wraps. Illustrations. Maps. Manhattan Project Chart. Notes. Select Bibliography. Manhattan Project Chronology. Cover tear at top staple and otherwise minor wear and soiling to covers. This is part of the Energy History Series. Topics covered include physics background, 1919-1939; early government support; the Manhattan Engineer District; the Manhattan Engineer District in operation; the atomic bomb and American strategy; and the Manhattan District in peacetime. The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. 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 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. Two types of atomic bombs were developed concurrently during the war: a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon. The Thin Man gun-type design proved impractical to use with plutonium so a simpler gun-type called Little Boy was developed that used uranium-235, an isotope that makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. The Fat Man implosion-type weapon was developed in a concerted design and development effort by the Los Alamos Laboratory. The first nuclear device ever detonated was an implosion-type bomb at the Trinity test, conducted at Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range on 16 July 1945. Little Boy and Fat Man bombs were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Manhattan Project conducted weapons testing at Bikini Atoll and maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in January 1947.…