S-1 Uranium Committee - S-1 Uranium Committee

S-1 Uranium Committee

The MAUD Committee completed the MAUD report on July 15, 1941, and disbanded. The report had two parts: the first concluding that a uranium-235 bomb would be feasible using 26 pounds of active metal with a yield equivalent to 1800 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT). The second concludes that the controlled fission of uranium-235 could be a source of heat energy for powering machines and a source of radio-isotopes.

On April 14, 1941, Lyman Briggs received a note from Eugene Wigner, stating:

It may interest you that a colleague of mine who arrived from Berlin via Lisbon a few days ago, brought the following message: a reliable colleague who is working at a technical research laboratory asked him to let us know that a large number of German physicists are working intensively on the problem of the uranium bomb under direction of Heisenberg, that Heisenberg himself tries to delay the work as much as possible, fearing catastrophic results of a success. But he cannot help fulfilling the orders given to him, and if the problem can be solved, it will be solved probably in the near future. So he gave the advice to us to hurry up if U.S.A will not come too late.

In the meantime, the NDRC under the leadership of Vannevar Bush was also exploring the possibility of using nuclear power for peaceful energy. A favorable report by Arthur Compton and the National Academy of Sciences was issued May 17, 1941, and after consultation with Roosevelt, Bush created the Office of Scientific Research and Development. On July 1, 1941, Bush assumed responsibility for all fission research and the Advisory Committee became the S-1 project of the NDRC. with Lyman Briggs reporting to Bush.

Marcus Oliphant came to the United States from England in August 1941 to find out why Briggs and his committee were apparently ignoring the MAUD Report. Oliphant discovered to his dismay that the reports and other documents sent directly to Briggs had not been shared with the Advisory Committee. Oliphant then met with the Uranium Committee and his colleagues Ernest Lawrence, James Conant and Enrico Fermi to explain the urgency. In these meetings Oliphant spoke of a "bomb" with certainty and explained that Britain did not have the resources to undertake the project so it was up to the United States.