STM+Week+11

"Statement by the President on the H-Bomb" "General Advisory Committee's Majority and Minority Reports on Building the H-Bomb" -Response

These two documents covered a small portion of the debate over the development of atomic weapons from the perspective of individuals within the project itself. The main topic on hand, was the development of what was dubbed "The Super", or more precisely a massive atomic that would dwarf any previous weapon by magnitudes anywhere from "100 to 1000" times more powerful. Although it would be easy to see how such a weapon would be viewed in a positive light by a nation's military that possessed such a weapon, the scientists that worked on the previous incarnations of the atomic bomb gave an entirely unanimous argument against further development, at least in the context of these documents. At the beginning of the first document, the military and government representatives lay out a very audacious set of plans that involve pushing the development and production of atomic weapons full steam ahead. Immediately after this proposal, we see that the scientific representatives present felt that in no way should any research towards the goal of creating a "Super" be carried out. Some opinions against this research pointed to the fact that there was no way to theoretically test out such weapons and the only way to progress any type of research would be to fully construct the bombs and test them in real world scenarios. This would require a massive amount of funding and manpower and carried with it unimaginable danger, as these weapons were meant to crush nations. Other arguments bring up the moral and ethical problems with such powerful weapons. There was no way that this type of bomb could be used on only military targets, as its massive blast radius would almost always engulf large numbers of civilians while destroying huge tracts of land and resources. The number of casualties seen in the wake of one of these "Supers" would not be on the scale of standard warfare but more akin to genocide. A less humanitarian, but more practical, argument was that with the current stockpile of atomic and conventional weapons, the United States could easily retaliate against any other power that would deploy a bomb similar to the fabled "Super", thus allowing the funds previously to be used for "Super" development to be put towards something else. In the end, these arguments were simply swept aside by the higher powers of the government when the President of the United States, himself, simply states in another short document that the scientists should "continue work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super bomb". As seen countless times in history, the opinion of science takes a back seat in the view of government to the products of science. times in history, the opinion of science takes a back seat in the view of government to the products of science.