A Cheaper Manhattan Project

One of the things that's always struck me about the Manhattan Project was that the US could afford to pour absurd sums of money into it, which Britain, France, Germany, etc. could never do.

But is the American way the only way? Is there any way to cut costs in the project?
 
With hindsight, building a reactor that used unenriched uranium and then going straight to a plutonium bomb would be cheaper because Plutonium can be separated chemically instead of having all the vastly complex and expensive Uranium isotope separation techniques.
 
With hindsight, building a reactor that used unenriched uranium and then going straight to a plutonium bomb would be cheaper because Plutonium can be separated chemically instead of having all the vastly complex and expensive Uranium isotope separation techniques.
Of course, that hindsight was gained through the expensive process of getting there the hard way...

Strictly put, yes, costs could have been cut. The US pursued different types of bombs simultaneously (uranium and plutonium), and going for one alone would technically have cut some costs. Of course, part of covering both bases was the uncertainty that either would work...
 
An earlier cooperation between USA and France/UK would also probably help. If the USA starts in '38 they can spread the project out much more making it less massive.
 
An earlier cooperation between USA and France/UK would also probably help. If the USA starts in '38 they can spread the project out much more making it less massive.
Not really. A number of technologies (atomic and chemical) wouldn't have been developed yet, a good number of European scientists wouldn't have made it to the US, and there would be little/no cooperation between the US and Britain on the manner. Even if it was possible at that point in time, the costs of the project would have ballooned AND France and Britain would have to replicate all of it and more on their own.
 
Of course, that hindsight was gained through the expensive process of getting there the hard way...

Strictly put, yes, costs could have been cut. The US pursued different types of bombs simultaneously (uranium and plutonium), and going for one alone would technically have cut some costs. Of course, part of covering both bases was the uncertainty that either would work...

You mean we had a back-up plan? Surely not............

I think your comment is a perfect and very precise summary of the situation. We had to try every one at once because we didn't know which one would work. As it happened they all did, more or less.
 
Yeah, it could have been done cheaper. i was researching this last summer when I was preparing for a timeline involving the Soviet Union getting the atomic bomb first. I read through a bunch of books on the nuclear process, and figured that if certain brains had made certain correct guesses at two or three points in the process, the atomic bomb could probably have been built at around 10% of the cost in OTL. Using a bunch of small, cheap, crappy reactors for a period of three to four years would've given somebody a nuke within 5-6 years of beginning theoretical work on such a device. (Going the plutonium route, of course.)

It's a shame my computer crashed, losing all of my research. :(
 

burmafrd

Banned
I really doubt that anything really could have changed substantially. By the time the correct guesses would have come into play, most of the foundation work on all the sites were already done- and once something like that gets started its awfull hard to end it.

The only way I think it could have been cheaper was if they decided to go with the more established and more easily accomplished uranium bomb; the gun type was not thought to be any risk at all of not working, and enriched U is a lot easier to do then getting plutonium. So only if it was decided to put all the eggs in that one basket would there have been a real big decrease. And looking at the times these decisions were being made in, that frankly could be argued to be very negligent.
 

Susano

Banned
Yes, with luck. I think that sums it up. As people have remaked, everything is clear in hindsight. So, with luck you come quickly to that point, with bad luck you... dont.

Though I guess more interservice cooperation in the US couldve helped.
 
Getting the British and American projects to cooperate fully from the start would have an effect IMO although more likely on speed rather than cost. The British scientists (and those European émigrés who had gone to Britain rather than the US) didn't participate in the Manhattan Project until 1943.

See Quebec Agreement
 
With hindsight, building a reactor that used unenriched uranium and then going straight to a plutonium bomb would be cheaper because Plutonium can be separated chemically instead of having all the vastly complex and expensive Uranium isotope separation techniques.

And just where will you get plutonium in industrial quantities without a uranium-based fission reactor to generate the neutrons necessary to make plutonium? Are you forgetting that plutonium does not occur in nature, and that it's purely a synthetic product of nuclear fission (apart from perhaps a few random atoms that occur as decay byproducts in uranium ore)?
 
And just where will you get plutonium in industrial quantities without a uranium-based fission reactor to generate the neutrons necessary to make plutonium? Are you forgetting that plutonium does not occur in nature, and that it's purely a synthetic product of nuclear fission (apart from perhaps a few random atoms that occur as decay byproducts in uranium ore)?

I'm not forgetting anything. It seems you didn't read my post very carefully. Here it is spelt out:

1. Reactors are built from naturally occurring (unenriched) Uranium.
2. Plutonium is a byproduct of the fission process in those reactors.
3. Plutonium can by separated from the other reactor products chemically.
4. Plutonium can be used for bombs.
5. So Uranium isotope separation was unnecessary.
6. So all the expense of Uranium isotope separation was unnecessary.
7. However, as I and others have said, this is only clear in hindsight.

There's lots of good articles about this on wikipedia if you need any more info.
 

hammo1j

Donor
The Plutonium bomb required advanced electronics whereby explosive charges detonated to implode the critical mass. A huge effort was required and a test in the desert since they were not sure it would work.

OTL the 2 bombs were ready at the same time so backing one horse without the other would not have speeded things although you could have halved the cost and doubled the risk of not getting a result.
 
Top