On: The Little “Fighter” That Couldn’t: Moral Hazard a...

[Shalomm]

Do or die? I'm not sure. Neither Apollo nor Manhattan were do-or-die situations (for the US).

Maybe "First-system" vs "Second-system syndrome" is the difference?

  Apollo and Manhattan were definitely "First systems".
  Bradley APC and F-35 are classic "Second systems",
    suffering from second-system syndrome [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_system_syndrome#The_sec...

[venomsnake → Shalomm]

In the times they were conceived they were. A different european theater would have made nukes absolutely needed at least as deterrent.

And US urgently needed to catch up in the space race - space is very efficient way to drop nuke on someone.

[leoc → venomsnake]

IIRC it was increasingly unlikely that the Axis could actually win a conventional war in Europe during the period of the Manhattan Project. The big fear was that Germany could develop its own atomic bomb first.

[tsotha → leoc]

Yes, that was the driver. We knew they were trying to build such a device, but we didn't know how far along they were. Given the German lead in other war technology areas (like guided missiles), it would have been foolish to underestimate them.

Of course the Germans were lucky to have lost before the bomb was ready. Otherwise instead instead of memorials at Hiroshima and Nagasaki they might be at Munich and Hamburg.

[Spooky23 → leoc]

At the start of the project, the Germans were still advancing through the Soviet Union, and the Solomon Islands were still actively contested. U-Boats were doing a number on convoys.

Victory over Germany wasn't a sure thing until late 1944. The fact that U.S. leadership had the foresight to make a massive investment in the Manhattan Project at a time where half of the US Navy's carriers were out of action speaks a lot of them.