Project disagreed The Manhattan Project THE FISSION PROCESS was the code name for the research project that produced the atomic bombs Groves Fission is a reaction that happens when a neutron strikes an atom causing the atom to believed the United States couldn't afford split This releases more neutrons The process to waste any plutonium on a test continues to multiply as more atoms split Oppenheimer and his scientific team causing a chain reaction that releases energy knew the process of fission inside the If enough atoms split the chain reaction provides the energy needed to create an plutonium bomb should work in theory atomic explosion Now they needed to actually test the weapon nicknamed the gadget The gadget's explosives were designed to fire at the same moment to create the chain reaction caused by fission which in turn would set off an explosion There was so much riding on this bomb President Franklin D Roosevelt and US military leaders believed it could end World War II 1939 1945 Oppenheimer knew the bomb needed to be tested In November 1944 Groves finally gave in FINDING A TEST SITE To keep the gadget a secret the Manhattan Project's scientists and military staff needed to find a remote location where no one could witness the test code named Trinity They considered eight possible locations from Southern California to the Gulf Coast of Texas In May 1944 Oppenheimer physicist Kenneth Bainbridge and US Army officers set off to find a New Mexico location For three days they drove around the desert looking for a flat desolate
Nuclear Fission destion produce neutron release of energy nucleus chain reaction neutron splitting of nucleus fission product The fission process releases an enormous amount of energy Finally they found the perfect site The area was called Jornada del Muerto in Spanish or the Journey of Death It was 210 miles 338 km south of Los Alamos The spot was within a few hours drive of Los Alamos yet far enough away to keep the top secret laboratory from being linked to a possible explosion The government didn't want any news to get out that the United States was testing a bomb The Los Alamos site was on the border of the US military's Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery
WORLD WAR II AND THE BOMB The United States and its allies including the employed a huge workforce and found the United Kingdom France the Soviet Union greatest scientific geniuses to create the and China were at war against the Axis atomic bomb first powers of Germany and Japan The Axis On April 30 1945 German dictator Adolf powers had dreams of world domination Hitler committed suicide as Allied troops Something had to be done to stop them and War IIl on closed in His suicide ended World end the worldwide war which began in 1939 the European front The Japanese continued The Germans were close to mastering battling though The United States decided nuclear fission in atomic bombs In response to use the atomic bomb on Japan in hopes of the United States spent billions of dollars shocking the country into surrender Bainbridge's job was to prepare the site for the test Starting in February 1945 he and his staff of 25 laborers worked toward their July 4 target test date The US Army transformed a house on the site into a field laboratory The staff grew to more than 250 workers many of whom were soldiers The US Army Corps of Engineers built three dirt covered bunkers with concrete slab roofs They were 10 000 yards 9 100 m from Ground Zero where the bomb would explode Each bunker was named after its direction and distance in yards from Ground Zero Bunker N 10 000 to the north housed recording instruments and searchlights Bunker W 10 000 to the west housed banks of high speed cameras and searchlights And bunker S 10 000 to the south served as the command center Another 5 miles 8 km to the south was the base camp It had the workers tents and barracks The laborers built a steel tower at Ground Zero They poured four concrete footings into the sand They built the legs from prefabricated steel that had 10
The atomic bomb was developed inside the Los Alamos Laboratory in New
