Los Alamos Laboratory-the creation of which was known as Project Y-was formally established on January 1, 1943. Robert Oppenheimer was already working on the concept of nuclear fission (along with Edward Teller and others) when he was named director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in northern New Mexico in 1943. Facilities were set up in remote locations in New Mexico, Tennessee and Washington, as well as sites in Canada, for this research and related atomic tests to be performed. On December 28, 1942, President Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project to combine these various research efforts with the goal of weaponizing nuclear energy. Meanwhile, scientists like Glenn Seaborg were producing microscopic samples of pure plutonium, and Canadian government and military officials were working on nuclear research at several sites in Canada.
Groves was appointed to lead the project.įermi and Szilard were still engaged in research on nuclear chain reactions, the process by which atoms separate and interact, now at the University of Chicago, and successfully enriching uranium to produce uranium-235. The OSRD formed the Manhattan Engineer District in 1942, and based it in the New York City borough of the same name. The Army Corps of Engineers joined the OSRD in 1942 with President Roosevelt’s approval, and the project officially morphed into a military initiative, with scientists serving in a supporting role. would enter World War II and align with Great Britain, France and Russia to fight against the Germans in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific theater. That same year, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt declared that the U.S. The Advisory Committee on Uranium’s name was changed in 1940 to the National Defense Research Committee, before finally being renamed the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in 1941 and adding Fermi to its list of members.
government started funding research by Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard at Columbia University, which was focused on radioactive isotope separation (also known as uranium enrichment) and nuclear chain reactions.
Based on the committee’s findings, the U.S. intelligence operatives reported that scientists working for Adolf Hitler were already working on a nuclear weapon.Īt first, Roosevelt set up the Advisory Committee on Uranium, a team of scientists and military officials tasked with researching uranium’s potential role as a weapon. The agencies leading up to the Manhattan Project were first formed in 1939 by President Franklin D.
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