If No WWII, When is the A-Bomb Developed?

So let us say that the Munich Agreement fails and Hitler tries to invade Czechoslovakia but is overthrown in the subsequent coup. Or any other POD. So no WWII. The war in the Pacific may or may not happen.

When about do you think the A-Bomb will be developed? By whom? Is it ever?

I did a search and couldn't find anything specifically on this.
 

Thande

Donor
We have discussed it before, but then the search function is crap.

This is a minority opinion based on those earlier discussions, but having studied the Manhattan Project as part of my undergraduate degree, I have come to the conclusion that the answer is 'probably never'. When you look at the levels of resources that were sunk into the project by the United States, the idea that a government would do that if the world wasn't consumed by war and it wasn't endorsed by a universally respected scientist like Einstein is...unlikely. I could easily see a setup where in Alt-2010 the 'atomic explosive' is some sort of long-running inefficient joint multinational research project like the ITER fusion reactor in OTL (with the intentions of using it for things like mining, as was planned in the Fifties before the dangers of radiation were fully realised) that never quite gets off the ground.
 
Thande, I have heard it asserted that advances in computer power would have made the calculations done during the Manhatten project much easier, and certainly the engineering design and manufacturing would benefit from CAD software and CNC machine tools. Wouldn't such advances allow a bomb project to succeed with a much lower resource commitment sometime in the 1970s or so?
 

Sachyriel

Banned
1954, for no other reason that it seems plausibly far enough in the future without a war going on to hasten the research and long enough to find a benefactor to pay for a test-bomb, as well as it's just the last two numbers of 1945 switched around, and a tribute to George Orwells, who you know, switched his 1984 around....
 
I was thinking that the most likely candidates were either Germany/Eastern Europe (given the amount of mental power and with the USSR still there and what not) or Japan (given that they would remain in a state of war at least with China and also very unfriendly with the USSR, plus if they stay friendly with the US/Western Powers by focusing on the USSR there would be no economic frustrations,, thus offering motive for the search for a superweapon). The Japanese had a good selection of mental power, and without a war with US academic collaboration. Also, they had the potential for a good amount of heavy water production. This would probably take a while to do though, probably around 1954.
 

Thande

Donor
Thande, I have heard it asserted that advances in computer power would have made the calculations done during the Manhatten project much easier, and certainly the engineering design and manufacturing would benefit from CAD software and CNC machine tools. Wouldn't such advances allow a bomb project to succeed with a much lower resource commitment sometime in the 1970s or so?

I'm thinking more the industrial commitment rather than the calculations which, as you say, would rapidly become simpler with the rise of electronic computers.

...of course, electronic computers owe quite a bit to WW2 as well...
 
Not by a democratic country, Stalin or another Soviet would gain the bomb eventually however. Japan's not realistic and will probably be curshed by the Soviets, West or Chinese eventually. Germany probably won't due her return to democracy.
 

Thande

Donor
Not by a democratic country, Stalin or another Soviet would gain the bomb eventually however.
Using the logic that a dictator can commit whatever resources he wants to a project without caring what people think? Well, that works. The problem however is that all the dictatorial countries except Germany which either (A) will return to democracy or (B) have the whole Nazi problem with Jewish science thing, are less technologically advanced and have less of a resource base than the USA. The USSR got the Bomb quickly in OTL but they had the advantage of excellent espionage into the Manhattan Project coupled with the wartime industrialisation. A Stalin or similar person-led USSR might well get the Bomb eventually if he decides he likes this idea, but it would take quite a while IMO--late 1950s perhaps.
 
How about nuclear power reactors developed first (say 1960's)? Improving the enrichment technology to the (much higher) standards required to make bomb material might seem the obvious next step. With half a dozen major powers competing...

Nuclear power, not initially being associated with bombing and war, might be more widely accepted.
 
The USSR got the Bomb quickly in OTL but they had the advantage of excellent espionage into the Manhattan Project coupled with the wartime industrialisation.

One could argue that Fuchs' espionage actually harmed the Soviet programme with Berias insistence on copying Fat Man even when more efficient desgins could have been utilised, the main problem for the Soviet Union wasn't the know-how, more how every resource was focused on the fight against the Germans and the destruction brought on Eastern Europe by the war.
 
I'm thinking more the industrial commitment rather than the calculations which, as you say, would rapidly become simpler with the rise of electronic computers.

...of course, electronic computers owe quite a bit to WW2 as well...

With the modern proportion of industrial employment and resource use I think it's quiet fathomable to have it developed shortly after the era of the lack of the war.

As part of my undergraduate thesis I'm studying Uranium development in the early 20th century and they were using it quite extensively in industry. Once the realization of processing power comes about I don't see it taking long.
 
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