The Atomic Weapons Establishment was doing Minimum Viable Product before it was cool to build MVPs! More seriously, most of the reason they cobbled this togeth

The Atomic Weapons Establishment was doing Minimum Viable Product before it was cool to build MVPs! More seriously, most of the reason they cobbled this together was because the US suddenly cut off access to research after WW2 (because of the McMahon Act [2]) and the UK had to look as if they were an independent member of the Big (nuclear) Boy's Club. Between this and the Windscale fire [1], that could've led to absolute disaster. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Act_of_1946 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Act_of_1946