So I’ve watched Oppenheimer and a recurring theme in the movie was how tedious task it was to get fission material (demonstrated as filling a large fish bowl by marbles). All they manage to collect in two year period was just enough for two bombs. but fast forward few years US have a complete arsenal of bombs to flat the earth. I understand they must’ve innovated a method and the exact method maybe classified, what i’m interested in is knowing what was the obstacle(s) for this and rough idea of how they might’ve overcome it.
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They had to set up the initial infrastructure to ramp up production. At the beginning of the project there were experiments that could produce the materials but they weren’t designed to be highly scalable or to really produce any large quantity. They had to create entirely new facilities that were dedicated to the production of the quantities in fast enough time. It’s also important to note that the quantity produced was still tiny even at the time little boy and fat man were produced.
The type of weapon little boy was never had a test so most of the uranium stockpile went into little boy whereas the plutonium went into Gadget and Fat Man. Making plutonium was also far more easier than enriching uranium. It could also be made out of the isotope of uranium that is considered undesirable for nuclear weapons.
After the war further knowledge was developed for enrichment of uranium which made plants more efficient and scalable. Most critically was the development of the gas centrifuge process.
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