It was a secret wartime project, with a code name and an urgent mission: develop a more powerful bomb, one that could be mass produced in time to fend off the German forces ravaging Europe. It was 1940.
British chemists toiled with a tripod-shaped bond of nitrogen and oxygen molecules linked by carbon and hydrogen they referred to as “research department explosive” — a substance one and a half times as powerful as TNT, but so delicate it had to be mixed with beeswax to be stable and pliable enough to fit into warheads. Even then, it wasn’t good enough. Only 70 tons could be made in a week. Defeating the Nazis would require more.
BOMBS IN OUR BACKYARD
This story is part of a series examining the Pentagon’s oversight of thousands of toxic sites on American soil, and years of stewardship marked by defiance and delay. Read more.
In 1941, American chemists accomplished what their British counterparts could not. John Sheehan and Werner Bachman, University of Michigan researchers, worked with a team of […]
With all the Billions of $ that the Military-Industrial Complex gets, I would think that they could at least clean up their toxic waste in an appropriate manner, so as not to hurt the public they serve (and who pays their salaries).