The success of the Manhattan Project was when a uranium bomb called “Little Boy” and a plutonium bomb “Fat Man” was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The success was a result of the collaboration between both the scientific and the engineering disciplines. Communication and efficiency amongst scientific minds equally …show more content…
This raises the question of whether there are limits to scientific inquiry and experiment. According to Oppenheimer, there is no constraint like legal, political or societal constraints to scientific research and experiment. This has enabled scientists to ignore the impact on humans, and to research and develop without any consequences of their trials. Scientific processes had overtaken moral, societal and political advancement during the project. Morally and politically, the scientific processes of the Manhattan Project impacted negatively as it gave other countries the opportunity to develop nuclear weapons that could pose a threat on the wellbeing of society. This ignorance could lead to self-extinction. The Project also led to environmental degradation at the execution and nuclear testing sites. On the other hand, the advancement brought the United States of America from a country suffering during the Great Depression to a dominant super power of the world. It produced great advances in physics, engineering and led to the origins of medicine. From this, we have now learnt that cleaner and cheaper energy is available from nuclear …show more content…
We see that communication and collaboration fueled the success of the project. However; there was an intentional censorship in communication between the military and government superiors and the Los Alamos laboratory so that the atomic development could be kept as a secret. This led to the most devastating ethical tragedy of the twentieth century. Many people expressed their disagreement with the use of atomic weapons. For example, some people decided to quit the project on humanitarian grounds. However; despite the opposition, the United States decided to go ahead with the use of atomic weapons since they believed that they were making the right decision, and it was the only way to end the war and stop the communist USSR and fascist Germany.
The accomplishment of the Manhattan Project led to vast environmental degradation. Manhattan Project researchers were accused of contaminating the alfalfa field next to the University of Rochester Medical School with radiosodium. It was again accused that a shipment which arrived by plane from Robley Evans at Massachusetts Institute of Technology included radiosodium mixed with water in a barrel and was poured into garden sprinklers. The release of the chemicals put communities and citizens at risk as it led to birth defects, low crop yields and radiation