On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 10:12 AM Christopher Manteuffel
<cmanteuf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This is way off-topic. But as someone who interned at a nuclear
non-proliferation group, I just want to share some of the historical context
that I learned.
And just a comment on the scale of the Manhattan Project: it's always hard
because of purchasing power comparisons, but by the numbers I trust most, the
entire V-2 project cost less than just the K-25 (Gaseous Barrier Diffusion)
plant alone- and that plant was unable to enrich enough uranium to produce a
bomb before the war ended (the S-50, K-25, and Y-12 plants, in that order,
were used in series to enrich sufficient uranium for Little Boy), and that
was months after Germany's surrender. The Manhattan Project operated at an
economic scale that is difficult to comprehend, and it is impossible for me
to envision the Nazis meeting that challenge. (This was not obvious in 1942.
If your estimate for the costs of an atomic bomb is based off the MAUD
report, the idea of a Nazi bomb is frightening. If your estimate is based off
the Manhattan Project, it's an amusing joke.)
