intelligence re

ports, were building their own atomic b
omb. Under the Manhattan Project three large facilities
were c 575.835.5312

onstructed. At Oak Ridge, Tenn., huge gas diffusion and elec tromagnetic process plants were built to separate uranium 235 from its more common form, uranium 238. Hanford, Wash. became the home for nuclear reactors which produced a new element called plutonium. Both uranium 235 and plutonium are fissionable and can be used to produce an atomic explosion. Los Alamos was established in northen New Mexico to design and build the bomb. At Los Alamos many of the greatest scientific minds of the day labored over the theory and actual construction of the device. The group was led by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer who is credited with being the driving force behind building a workable bomb by the end of the war. (The theory

) Los Alamos scientists devised two designs for an atomic bomb--one using uranium 235 and another using plutonium. The uranium bomb was a simple design and scientists were confident it would work without testing. The plutonium bomb was more complex and worked by compressing the plutonium into a critical mass to sustain a chain reaction. The compression of the plutonium ball was to be accomplished by surrounding it with lense-shaped charges of conventional explosives. They were designed to all explode at the same instant. The force would be directed inward, thus smashing the plutonium from all sides. In an atomic explo

sion, a chain reaction pick

• s up speed as atoms split, releasing neutrons plus great amou
• nts of energy. The escaping
• neutrons strike and split more atoms, thus releasin
  
• g still more neutrons and energy. In a nuclear explosion this all occurs in a millionth of
• a second with billions of atoms being split. Project leaders d
• ecided a test of the plutonium bomb was essential before it could be used as a weapon of war. From a