How a 3rd Nuke destined for Japan killed American Scientists here in the US.

[prdubi]

More importantly, they lacked a supply of heavy water necessary for the refinement process. Also their key scientists were being watched and would have been assassinated if it was believed they were engaging in serious development of atomic weapons, one of the reasons Otto Hahn and other refused to engage in weapons research for Germany.

There are things still being found such as that underground factory near Vienna.

I don't believe the final story has been asked and answered yet.

Also the UK MoD and DOD still have classified information still secret until 2045.
Why?


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[BrigandTwoFour]

This kind of thing is actually in my wheelhouse (former USAF ICBM Operations officer). A lot of people think history is somehow clouded in mystery, but it's not. Two good books on the topic are Rhodes's The Making of the Atomic Bomb and The Nuclear Express by Thomas Reed.

Rhodes's book is exhaustingly detailed about the program. Most people don't realize that nuclear fission of uranium was not some mystery, scientists all over the world worked together and compared notes via scientific journals all the way up through the '30s. Once they realized that an independently sustained fission event could lead to a weapon of immense power, the race was on.

Germany, led by Werner Heisenberg, pursued a heavy water path that may have been successful had they not been disrupted (twice) by a combination of British and Norwegian commandos, see https://www.nationalgeographic.com/n...b-heavy-water/ or watch The Heavy Water War for a dramatization.

The British had the Tube Alloys program, which eventually started working alongside the American Manhattan Project.

The Japanese were also interested but made a political gamble to not pursue it. They, wrongly as it turned out, believed that the Americans would not have the industrial infrastructure to pursue such a program while also fighting a war on two fronts.

The Soviets were also pursuing it, but relied heavily on espionage to get there.

As far as the two bombs deployed, it was a hedge by using two competing designs of a "gun-type" assembly and an "implosion-type." The first used Uranium-235 refined through gas diffusion, a process perfected by the US during the Manhattan Project (at great expense). The gun-type was a much more inefficient design, but the engineering was so simple that we never actually tested it before dropping it on Hiroshima.

The second type, implosion, used Plutonium-239 produced via reactors at Oak Ridge, Tennessee (the experimental "X" reactor used to test the production theory) and the full-scale reactors at Hanford, Washington. The engineering was so complicated that many of the engineers thought it was impossible to do correctly, right up until the successful Trinity test.

[chuckman]

This kind of thing is actually in my wheelhouse (former USAF ICBM Operations officer). A lot of people think history is somehow clouded in mystery, but it's not. Two good books on the topic are Rhodes's The Making of the Atomic Bomb and The Nuclear Express by Thomas Reed.

Rhodes's book is exhaustingly detailed about the program. Most people don't realize that nuclear fission of uranium was not some mystery, scientists all over the world worked together and compared notes via scientific journals all the way up through the '30s. Once they realized that an independently sustained fission event could lead to a weapon of immense power, the race was on.

Germany, led by Werner Heisenberg, pursued a heavy water path that may have been successful had they not been disrupted (twice) by a combination of British and Norwegian commandos, see https://www.nationalgeographic.com/n...b-heavy-water/ or watch The Heavy Water War for a dramatization.

The British had the Tube Alloys program, which eventually started working alongside the American Manhattan Project.

The Japanese were also interested but made a political gamble to not pursue it. They, wrongly as it turned out, believed that the Americans would not have the industrial infrastructure to pursue such a program while also fighting a war on two fronts.

The Soviets were also pursuing it, but relied heavily on espionage to get there.

As far as the two bombs deployed, it was a hedge by using two competing designs of a "gun-type" assembly and an "implosion-type." The first used Uranium-235 refined through gas diffusion, a process perfected by the US during the Manhattan Project (at great expense). The gun-type was a much more inefficient design, but the engineering was so simple that we never actually tested it before dropping it on Hiroshima.

The second type, implosion, used Plutonium-239 produced via reactors at Oak Ridge, Tennessee (the experimental "X" reactor used to test the production theory) and the full-scale reactors at Hanford, Washington. The engineering was so complicated that many of the engineers thought it was impossible to do correctly, right up until the successful Trinity test.

Have you read Broken Arrow? I have not yet, it's on my list....

[BrigandTwoFour]

That's the one about the 1961 B-52 crash, right? I've not read it, but am familiar with the incident.

Another one to check out is Command and Control by Eric Schlossler. I take issues with some of his points, but it covers a lot of ground. Much of th ebook is spent on the Damascus incident with a Titan II ICBM around Little Rock AFB (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_D...sile_explosion). When I was a lieutenant, I worked for an O-6 who was a young enlisted security forces member on the ground there.

[kwelz]

My father worked on nukes while he was in the Air Force. They have reunions every year and he was even the president of their group for a while. The stories these guys tell run from terrifying to hilarious. The number of almost disasters I have heard about at these events.....

[chuckman]

That's the one about the 1961 B-52 crash, right? I've not read it, but am familiar with the incident.

Another one to check out is Command and Control by Eric Schlossler. I take issues with some of his points, but it covers a lot of ground. Much of th ebook is spent on the Damascus incident with a Titan II ICBM around Little Rock AFB (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_D...sile_explosion). When I was a lieutenant, I worked for an O-6 who was a young enlisted security forces member on the ground there.

Partly, yes. The B-52 incident happened in my mom's hometown. Had that last safety not did it's thing, I would not be here (nor a whole lotta other people). Fascinating stuff. There was a PBS show about the Little Rock incident based on the book, quite good.

[Alex V]

My father worked on nukes while he was in the Air Force. They have reunions every year and he was even the president of their group for a while. The stories these guys tell run from terrifying to hilarious. The number of almost disasters I have heard about at these events.....

My father was in the Soviet Air Force working on TU95s in Uzyn. Those TU95 would fly with live nukes all the time. Wonder how many of them has accidents we will never know about?

[kwelz]

My father was in the Soviet Air Force working on TU95s in Uzyn. Those TU95 would fly with live nukes all the time. Wonder how many of them has accidents we will never know about?

Seriously? Is your father still around? I bet my dad would love to talk to him.

[chuckman]

My father was in the Soviet Air Force working on TU95s in Uzyn. Those TU95 would fly with live nukes all the time. Wonder how many of them has accidents we will never know about?

The US did not like to talk about AC crashes with nukes, you just know the USSR would clamp down on it.

[Firefly]

My father was in the Soviet Air Force working on TU95s in Uzyn. Those TU95 would fly with live nukes all the time. Wonder how many of them has accidents we will never know about?

Action word: JERICHO