I'm surprised that the cost of development was only $800 million — the equivalent of $13.6 billion today. That's minuscule by the standards of congressional spending.
Compare it to another engineering project of national importance: the Apollo mission to land man on the moon. It cost $25.8 billion between 1960 and 1973, or $257 billion in 2020 dollars[1].
Both were massive and urgent projects, but the atomic bomb cost 5% of what Apollo cost. An unexpected bargain.
Public space programs in the US have always been a job creation program that gets chopped up and subcontracted across the country, so many senators can campaign on how they are bringing space jobs to their state. The cost is intentional. And this unnecessary cross country subcontracting was an organizational cause of the Challenger explosion.
Wow, developing an airplane, when there were already other airplanes cost twice as much as creating a bomb that hadn’t existed before.
What comes to mind is that it’s pretty important to keep an airplane in the air, which must require a lot of careful engineering. Also that you have to make a lot of them. A bomb doesn’t really have either engineering requirements. (Only has to work once, they only made a few)
I also wonder to what degree cost was saved by getting all those highly talented and motivated refugees from europe
The B-29 was the first bomber with a pressure cabin. This allowed it operate at a high altitude for a longer time than other bombers of the era, staying out of flak range, etc. I imagine that was part of the reason for the high development cost.
Prior to that bomber crews operated using electrically heated flight suites, gloves and used oxygen masks, when reaching those altitudes.
What all is included in these costs? Is the price shown the R&D to produce the first one, or does it include the cost of the production run as well?
After Fat Man & Little Boy, it's obvious we didn't just stop building bombs. The Manhattan Project's main development was the proof that the bomb was possible. Much more money followed making new versions that were even more powerful.
Compare it to another engineering project of national importance: the Apollo mission to land man on the moon. It cost $25.8 billion between 1960 and 1973, or $257 billion in 2020 dollars[1].
Both were massive and urgent projects, but the atomic bomb cost 5% of what Apollo cost. An unexpected bargain.
[1] https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo