Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Early Research on Fission: 1933–1943
- 3 The Early Materials Program: 1933–1943
- 4 Setting Up Project Y: June 1942 to March 1943
- 5 Research in the First Months of Project Y: April to September 1943
- 6 Creating a Wartime Community: September 1943 to August 1944
- 7 The Gun Weapon: September 1943 to August 1944
- 8 The Implosion Program Accelerates: September 1943 to July 1944
- 9 New Hopes for the Implosion Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 10 The Nuclear Properties of a Fission Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 11 Uranium and Plutonium: Early 1943 to August 1944
- 12 The Discovery of Spontaneous Fission in Plutonium and the Reorganization of Los Alamos
- 13 Building the Uranium Bomb: August 1944 to July 1945
- 14 Exploring the Plutonium Implosion Weapon: August 1944 to February 1945
- 15 Finding the Implosion Design: August 1944 to February 1945
- 16 Building the Implosion Gadget: March 1945 to July 1945
- 17 Critical Assemblies and Nuclear Physics: August 1944 to July 1945
- 18 The Test at Trinity: January 1944 to July 1945
- 19 Delivery: June 1943 to August 1945
- Epilogue
- 20 The Legacy of Los Alamos
- Notes
- Name Index
- Subject Index
19 - Delivery: June 1943 to August 1945
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Early Research on Fission: 1933–1943
- 3 The Early Materials Program: 1933–1943
- 4 Setting Up Project Y: June 1942 to March 1943
- 5 Research in the First Months of Project Y: April to September 1943
- 6 Creating a Wartime Community: September 1943 to August 1944
- 7 The Gun Weapon: September 1943 to August 1944
- 8 The Implosion Program Accelerates: September 1943 to July 1944
- 9 New Hopes for the Implosion Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 10 The Nuclear Properties of a Fission Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 11 Uranium and Plutonium: Early 1943 to August 1944
- 12 The Discovery of Spontaneous Fission in Plutonium and the Reorganization of Los Alamos
- 13 Building the Uranium Bomb: August 1944 to July 1945
- 14 Exploring the Plutonium Implosion Weapon: August 1944 to February 1945
- 15 Finding the Implosion Design: August 1944 to February 1945
- 16 Building the Implosion Gadget: March 1945 to July 1945
- 17 Critical Assemblies and Nuclear Physics: August 1944 to July 1945
- 18 The Test at Trinity: January 1944 to July 1945
- 19 Delivery: June 1943 to August 1945
- Epilogue
- 20 The Legacy of Los Alamos
- Notes
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
After the Trinity test, Los Alamos could complete its “delivery” program to provide combat weapons – the program code-named Project Alberta (or Project A). The engineering tasks of the program had included choosing suitable airplanes, training the crew, designing a ballistically stable outer shell and tail, ensuring the bomb's safety from electronic interference by the enemy, and evaluating fuzes. The last phase of the program was bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Delivery Activities in 1943
The delivery program began in October 1943 with the establishment in the Ordnance Division of group E-7, “integration of design and delivery,” made up of Norman F. Ramsey, Jr., the group leader, Sheldon Dike, and Bernard Waldman. Personable and outgoing, Ramsey was the son of an army general and trained as a molecular beams physicist at Columbia University, who had worked under I. I. Rabi. As a consultant in the field of microwave radar for the secretary of war, Ramsey was highly valued by Stimson's assistant, Edward Bowles. To bring Ramsey to Los Alamos, Groves arranged a compromise in which Ramsey officially remained on Bowles's staff while he served on permanent loan to Los Alamos.
Ramsey's first tasks were to survey the Army Air Forces' stock of airplanes and determine the sizes and shapes of bombs they could carry. To drop the long plutonium gun weapon, Project Y needed an airplane with a bomb bay at least 17 feet long and 23 inches in diameter.
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- Information
- Critical AssemblyA Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945, pp. 378 - 397Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993