The B-29 Enola Gay, piloted and commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, was launched from Tinian airbase in the West Pacific, approximately 6 hours' flight time away from Japan.
Weapons and Technology
The atomic bomb was first developed through a US government research project from 1942-1945 called the "Manhattan Project." This effort actually began in 1939 by American scientists who were refugees from fascist Europe. Scientists, including Albert Einstein, gave a presentation to President Roosevelt on the potential military applications of an uncontrolled fission chain reaction.
The project was officially dubbed the "Manhattan Project" in 1942. The project could only be successful if the scientists could figure out a way to produce the explosive material. Uranium-235 was the the essential fissionable component of the proposed bomb, but it was a scarce material. Scientist Arthur Holley Compton at the University of Chicago, was able to produce plutonium-239, a manufacturable version of what they needed (which could be produced and therefore easier to obtain). This material allowed them to create the fission chain reaction to detonate the bomb. Now, they had to find a way to carry the weapon.
In a lab directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, New Mexico, they spent over a year developing a method of reducing the fissionable products of the production plants to pure metal and fabricating the metal into shapes that could be launched and targeted.
The first test atomic bomb was exploded at 5:30 am on July 16, 1945. The bomb generated an explosive power equivalent to 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT. The following month, two other atomic bombs were dropped... on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
The project was officially dubbed the "Manhattan Project" in 1942. The project could only be successful if the scientists could figure out a way to produce the explosive material. Uranium-235 was the the essential fissionable component of the proposed bomb, but it was a scarce material. Scientist Arthur Holley Compton at the University of Chicago, was able to produce plutonium-239, a manufacturable version of what they needed (which could be produced and therefore easier to obtain). This material allowed them to create the fission chain reaction to detonate the bomb. Now, they had to find a way to carry the weapon.
In a lab directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, New Mexico, they spent over a year developing a method of reducing the fissionable products of the production plants to pure metal and fabricating the metal into shapes that could be launched and targeted.
The first test atomic bomb was exploded at 5:30 am on July 16, 1945. The bomb generated an explosive power equivalent to 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT. The following month, two other atomic bombs were dropped... on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.