The Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was a project in which the goal was to create the first atom bomb. The United States, The United Kingdom, and Canada were the key players in the Manhattan project. More specifically in charge of the project was The US Army's engineers, and American physicist; Robert Oppenheimer. In 1945 they were successful in creating 3 nuclear weapons, one a tester which was dropped in New Mexico, and 2 that were dropped in Japan, one in Hiroshima, and one in Nagasaki.
The project itself was developed in fear that the Germans were en route to creating nuclear weapons of their own. The Manhattan project started out small, but then developed into a project that employed over 130,000 people and cost about 2 billion dollars. Although it does have the name "The Manhattan project," there were about 30 research facilities scattered all throughout the United States, Canada, and The UK.
The United States reasoning for dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was because they assumed this would end the war immediately, therefore saving the lives of many Americans. The number of causalities, the second the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima has been said to be as many as 100,000.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all felt that one way or another."
J. Robert Oppenheimer

So was it a good choice for the United States to drop the Atom bomb? Would Japan have surrendered anyway? This is the question we are being asked to debate this coming Friday. More research will be presented as this debate develops.