National Defense Research Committee - NDRC Research

NDRC Research

Under the chairmanship of Bush the NDRC created new laboratories, including the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which aided the development of radar, and the Underwater Sound Laboratory at San Diego, which developed sonar. The former grew to be the largest single activity of the NDRC. In the year of its autonomous existence, the NDRC received approximately $6,500,000 (out of a requested $10,000,000) for research.

The NDRC's most important project eventually became the Manhattan Project — the full-scale project to produce nuclear weapons by the United States. An Advisory Committee on Uranium had been established to consider the feasibility of an atomic bomb as part of the National Bureau of Standards during 1939 as the result of the Einstein–Szilárd letter, but had not made significant progress. It was instructed in Roosevelt's June 15 letter to report to the NDRC and Bush, establishing the chain of command which would later result in the full-scale bomb project. During June 1940 Bush reorganized the Uranium Committee into a scientific body and eliminated military membership. No longer beholden to the military for funds, the NDRC had greater access to money for nuclear research. However there was little impetus until the British MAUD Committee's findings were presented in 1941.