1. Forum
  2. Usenet
  3. SOC.HISTORY.WHAT-IF

  • Japanese A-Bomb (Was Af/Pak & Other News (8/6/2019))

    From The Horny Goat@21:1/5 to Byker on Wed Sep 11 10:46:25 2019
    On Wed, 7 Aug 2019 17:20:38 -0500, "Byker" <byker@do~rag.net> wrote:

    Sounds like BS, anyone out there know more about the Japanese A-Bomb
    program?

    From all I've heard, it never got far beyond the drawing board:

    https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-japan-bomb-20150805-story.html

    https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/new-documents-found-pointing-to-japanese-atomic-bomb-pr-1722338915


    Several countries had worked out the science of an atomic bomb by 1945
    (Just for starters for the Allies: USA, UK, Canada - yes!, USSR and
    Germany and Italy for the Axis so Japan wouldn't particularly surprise
    me as Japanese physicists knew immediately what had been dropped on
    Hiroshima and Nagaski) but the actual engineering of a manufacturing
    base was something nobody but the US was able to achieve during the
    war which is why the US Manhattan project included plenty of Brits and Canadians - including the first ever person to die of the radiation of
    a near critical mass. His apologists claim his sacrifice of his life
    prevented either a nuclear explosion or meltdown. Myself I'm not so
    sure but what seems clear is the near chain reaction he prevented
    generated lethal amounts of radiation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Rich Rostrom@21:1/5 to The Horny Goat on Wed Sep 11 17:05:00 2019
    The Horny Goat <[email protected]> wrote:

    ... the US Manhattan project included plenty of Brits and Canadians ...

    And an Italian, several Hungarians, and even some Germans.

    Klaus Fuchs, later exposed as a Soviet agent, was a German
    Communist. He was cleared as having no possible loyalty to
    Nazi Germany, and was sent to the US by Britain, where he
    had been interned as an enemy alien. He was a significant
    contributor: it was said that better "compartmentalization"
    would not have limited the success of his spying for the USSR,
    because he would have been _in_ the most secret and important
    "compartment", due to his technical brilliance.
    --
    Nous sommes dans une pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerd�s.
    --- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)