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On November 12, 2024, Donald Trump described the "Department of Government Efficiency" as "potentially 'The Manhattan Project' of our time." The president-elect announced former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to head the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as reported by Wired.
According to the SCIAM website, the Manhattan Project was a secret program to make the first atomic bombs during World War II. Under the project, thousands of scientists including J. Robert Oppenheimer were logged along with their families at secret military bases in remote locations.
The project had a prominent impact on history as it resulted in two atomic bombs being dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945. The atomic bombs brought World War II to an end and resulted in the death of more than 100,000 people.
The Manhattan Project employed 130,000 workers and spent $2.2 billion by the end of World War II
As per details of the Manhattan Project mentioned in the Office of Legacy Management website, a national survey showcased that journalists as well as the public ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb and the end of World War II as the top news stories of the 20th century.
The secret military bases where the scientists were reportedly kept with their families also comprised people from the military and tens of thousands of ordinary Americans working at multiple sites across the country to transform scientific discoveries into new weapons.
The website mentions that when the secret project was revealed to Americans after the bomb dropping at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were surprised to know about the existence of a top-secret, government-run operation that not consisted of physical properties but a labour force similar to the automotive industry and payrolls.
As per the Office of Legacy Management, when the Manhattan Project was at its peak, it reportedly employed 130,000 workers and by the end of the war $2.2 billion were spent under the project.
Additionally, as per Britannica, prior to 1943, the design and functioning of the bomb were largely theoretical and were based on fundamental experiments carried out across varied locations. In the same year, a laboratory operating under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer was created in an isolated location at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The laboratory's goal was to develop methods for reducing fissionable products from production plants into pure metal and shape them as needed. By the summer of 1945, enough plutonium-239 had been gathered to produce a nuclear explosion. At the same time, the weapon's design and development had progressed to the point where an actual field test was possible.
This led to the first nuclear test, codenamed "Trinity," which took place on July 16, 1945, 210 miles south of Los Alamos.
As per The Times of India dated November 13, 2024, Trump's comparison of the newly formed DOGE to the Manhattan Project was in context to the "scale and transformative potential" of the government department.
The news publication stated that Trump's reference to the project while announcing the Department of Government Efficiency referred to how the Manhattan Project redefined power on a global platform.
