=55m
concentration in other countries on the atomic bomb, and one should expect also
comparable results,
C
It is clear also that the money cost is no barriketoany nation worthy
the name.
The two billion dollars which the bomb development project cost the
United States must be considered small for a weapon of such exbraordinary
military power.
Moreover, that sum is by no means the measure of what @ com
parable development would cost other nations,
The American programwas pushed
during wartime under extreme urgency and under war-inflated prices.
were always considered secondary to the saving of time,
Money costs
The scientists and
-engincers who designed the plants and equipment were constantly pushing into the
unknown,
The huge plant at Hanford, Washington for the production of plutoniun, ©
for example, was pushed forward on the basis of that amount of knowledge of the
properties of the new element which could be gleaned from the study of half a
milligram in the laboratorics at Chicago. ©
Five separate processes for the
production of fissionable materials were pushed concurrently, for the planners
had to hedge against the possibility of failure in one or more.
room for weighing the relative economy of each,
There was no
Minor failures and fruiticss
rescarches did in fact occur in cach process,
It is fairly safe to say that another country, proceeding only on the information available in the Smyth Report, woulc be able to reach something comparable to the American production at less than half the cost--even if we adopt
the American price level as a standard.
Another country would certainly be able
to economize by selecting one of the processes and ignoring the others--no
doubt the plutonium production process, since various indices seem to point
clearly to its being the least difficult and the most rewarding one--an impression
50, Smyth lieport, paragraph 7.3.
A milligram is a thousandth of a eran (one
United States dine weighs 2-1/2 grams),
8.1,
8.26,
and
9.13.
See also ibid., paragraphs 5.21, 7.43,