Editing Manhattan Project (section)

== Legacy ==
{{See also|Nuclear weapons in popular culture}}
[[File:Aerial view of Niagara Falls Storage Site, Lewiston, New York (2002).jpg|thumb|The [[Lake Ontario Ordnance Works]] (LOOW) near [[Niagara Falls, New York|Niagara Falls]] became a principal repository for Manhattan Project waste for the Eastern United States.<ref>{{cite web |title= The Community LOOW Project: A Review of Environmental Investigations and Remediation at the Former Lake Ontario Ordnance Works |publisher= King Groundwater Science, Inc. |date= September 2008 |url= http://www.niagaracounty.com/Portals/4/Docs/CLP%20Final%20Report%20Sept%2008.pdf}}</ref> All of the radioactive materials stored at the LOOW site—including [[thorium]], [[uranium]], and the world's largest concentration of [[radium]]-226—were buried in an "Interim Waste Containment Structure" (in the foreground) in 1991.<ref name="COE2">{{cite web |title= Niagara Falls Storage Site, New York |publisher= U.S. Army Corps of Engineers |date= 31 August 2011 |url= http://www.lm.doe.gov/Niagara/Fact_Sheet__Niagara_Falls_Storage_Site.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170223003831/http://www.lm.doe.gov/Niagara/Fact_Sheet__Niagara_Falls_Storage_Site.pdf |archive-date=23 February 2017}}</ref><ref name="Jenks">{{cite journal |last= Jenks |first= Andrew |date= July 2002 |title= Model City USA: The Environmental Cost of Victory in World War II and the Cold War |journal= Environmental History |volume= 12 |issue= 77 |page= 552 |doi=10.1093/envhis/12.3.552}}</ref><ref name="DePalma">{{cite news |last= DePalma |first= Anthony |title= A Toxic Waste Capital Looks to Spread it Around; Upstate Dump is the Last in the Northeast |newspaper=The New York Times|date= 10 March 2004 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/10/nyregion/toxic-waste-capital-looks-spread-it-around-upstate-dump-last-northeast.html}}</ref>]]

The political and cultural impacts of the development of nuclear weapons were profound. [[William Laurence]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'', the first to use the phrase "[[Atomic Age]]",<ref name="laurence19450926">{{cite news |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2fpLSlthuEMC&pg=PA1 |title=Drama of the Atomic Bomb Found Climax in July 16 Test |newspaper=The New York Times |date=26 September 1945 |access-date=1 October 2012 |last=Laurence |first=William L. |author-link=William Laurence}}</ref> became the official correspondent for the Manhattan Project in spring 1945. He witnessed both the Trinity test<ref>{{harvnb|Sweeney|2001|pp=204–205}}.</ref> and the bombing of Nagasaki and wrote the official press releases on them. He went on to write a series of articles extolling the virtues of the new weapon. His reporting helped to spur public awareness of the potential of nuclear technology and motivated its development in the United States and Soviet Union.<ref>{{harvnb|Holloway|1994|pp=59–60}}.</ref>

The Manhattan Project left a legacy of a network of [[United States Department of Energy national laboratories|national laboratories]]: the [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]], [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]], [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]], [[Argonne National Laboratory]], and [[Ames Laboratory]]. Two more were established by Groves soon after the war, the [[Brookhaven National Laboratory]] at [[Upton, New York]], and the [[Sandia National Laboratories]] at Albuquerque, New Mexico.<ref>{{harvnb|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|pp=633–637}}.</ref> They would be in the vanguard of the kind of large-scale research that [[Alvin Weinberg]], the director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, would call [[Big Science]].<ref>{{harvnb|Weinberg|1961|p=161}}.</ref> [[Computational science]], especially [[computational engineering]], was influenced by the Manhattan Project; Los Alamos ran one of the most advanced [[tabulating machine]] facilities in the world.<ref name="t3502">{{cite journal |last=Archer |first=B. J. |date=2021-12-03 |title=The Los Alamos Computing Facility During the Manhattan Project |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00295450.2021.1940060?needAccess=true |journal=Nuclear Technology |volume=207 |issue=sup1 |pages=S190–S203 |doi=10.1080/00295450.2021.1940060 |issn=0029-5450 |access-date=2025-03-13 |doi-access=free|arxiv=2103.05705 }}</ref>

The Naval Research Laboratory had long been interested in the prospect of using nuclear power for warship propulsion, and sought to create its own nuclear project. In May 1946, Nimitz, now [[Chief of Naval Operations]], decided that the Navy should instead work with the Manhattan Project. A group of naval officers were assigned to Oak Ridge, the most senior of whom was Captain [[Hyman G. Rickover]], who became assistant director there. They immersed themselves in the study of nuclear energy, laying the foundations for a [[nuclear navy|nuclear-powered navy]].<ref>{{harvnb|Hewlett|Duncan|1969|pp=74–76}}.</ref> A similar group of Air Force personnel arrived at Oak Ridge in September 1946 with the aim of developing [[nuclear aircraft]].<ref>{{harvnb|Hewlett|Duncan|1969|pp=72–74}}.</ref> Their [[Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion|Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft]] project ran into formidable technical difficulties and was ultimately canceled.<ref>{{harvnb|Hewlett|Duncan|1969|pp=490–493, 514–515}}</ref>

The ability of the new reactors to create radioactive isotopes in previously unheard-of quantities sparked a revolution in [[nuclear medicine]]. Starting in mid-1946, Oak Ridge began distributing radioisotopes to hospitals and universities, primarily [[iodine-131]] and [[phosphorus-32]] for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Isotopes were also used in biological, industrial and agricultural research.<ref>{{harvnb|Hewlett|Duncan|1969|pp=252–253}}.</ref>

Its production sites, operating with new technologies, exotic substances, and under conditions of secrecy and haste, also left a vast legacy of waste and environmental damage. At Hanford, for example, corrosive and radioactive wastes were stored in "hastily fabricated, single-shell, steel-lined, underground storage tanks" that were intended to be temporary, awaiting a more permanent solution.<ref>{{harvnb|Walker|2009|pp=2–3}}</ref> Instead, they were neglected and eventually leaked. Issues of this kind resulted in Hanford becoming "one of the most contaminated nuclear waste sites in North America", and the subject of significant cleanup efforts after it was deactivated in the late Cold War.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-06-1018|title=Nuclear Waste: DOE's Efforts to Protect the Columbia River from Contamination Could Be Further Strengthened|author=General Accounting Office|year=2006|access-date=23 January 2024}}</ref>

On handing over control to the Atomic Energy Commission, Groves bid farewell to the people who had worked on the Manhattan Project:
{{Blockquote|Five years ago, the idea of Atomic Power was only a dream. You have made that dream a reality. You have seized upon the most nebulous of ideas and translated them into actualities. You have built cities where none were known before. You have constructed industrial plants of a magnitude and to a precision heretofore deemed impossible. You built the weapon which ended the War and thereby saved countless American lives. With regard to peacetime applications, you have raised the curtain on vistas of a new world.<ref>{{harvnb|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|p=655}}.</ref>}}

The [[Manhattan Project National Historical Park]] was established on 10 November 2015.<ref>{{cite web |title=Manhattan Project National Historical Park |url=https://www.energy.gov/management/office-management/operational-management/history/manhattan-project/manhattan-project-0 |publisher=Department of Energy |access-date=10 November 2015}}</ref>