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>God I wish we could Manhattan Project this shit. Interesting point of reference: the Manhattan project cost around around $25 billion in today's dollars. The

>God I wish we could Manhattan Project this shit. Interesting point of reference: the Manhattan project cost around around $25 billion in today's dollars. The US government spent at least $6 trillion on the coronavirus response, which could buy 200 Manhattan Projects. Coronavirus will kill around a million people this year at most; air pollution kills around five million per year (and sea level rises could kill a lot more).

01100011 6y ago
Aren't you implying, intentionally or not, that a "Manhattan Project" level of expenditure, $25 billion, is enough to make meaningful progress towards commercial fusion energy production? I don't think that is a given.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  The implication is rather that we’ve grown much more inept when it comes to getting things done.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Because there isn't an existential war going on forcing people to listen to the people who want to be economically efficient.
    - xyzzyz 6y ago
      Yeah it’s not like we’re in any kind of emergency that required reorganizing the whole society and economy, or anything like that.
  - ars 6y ago
    Or because all the low hanging fruit is plucked.
- IanCal 6y ago
  That's roughly the total cost of ITER.
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    According to David Edgerton's The Shock of the Old, Brigadier-General Leslie Groves had previously overseen the construction of several munitions plants costing much more than the entire cost of the Manhattan Engineering District project. 1. Chapter 8, "Invention", p198 in my paperback edition.
adrianN 6y ago
Things sure were cheap back then. ITER alone is expected to cost at least 22 billion Euros.
inglor_cz 6y ago
In my opinion, the main reason for success of the Manhattan Project wasn't the budget, but getting people such as Feynman, Fermi, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Szilard and Wheeler to work on the project together with a sense of urgency. 25 billion USD buys a lot of necessary stuff, but one Feynman doing his best to crack a secret of nature is priceless.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Before the 10x programmers there were 10x physicists and the Manhattan project had a lot of those And as opposed to the current advertisement websites with auxiliary functions, I believe they had a more physics centered role
- bwanab 6y ago
  That budget was essential. A hundred Feymans would have been useless without those thousands of engineers and workers who built and operated the plants Kringle Washington and Tennessee that produced fissionable enough fissionable material.
Seanambers 6y ago
Interestingly enough, the most expensive program was The B-29 bomber program, which cost 50% more than the Manhattan project. Then one B-29 had an emergency landing in Sovjet and the soviets reversed engineered it into the TU-4. Tu-94 which is still flying is a newer scaled up version of this. It's amazing how much of the innovation the U.S did in the 1940s ended up in others hands(the bomb, B-29). The world would probably be very different if it hadn't happened.
- wil421 6y ago
  The physicists knew an atomic bomb was possible the US just did it fist. I am sure secrets got out that helped the Soviets create one but I think they would've created one regardless.
  - yostrovs 6y ago
    History says that that's not true and the Soviets relied on extensive networks of spies to get tech secrets, be it the bomb or so many other military projects.
- lenkite 6y ago
  The US copied a lot from Germany too. https://www.businessinsider.com/6-things-us-stole-from-germans-during-wwii-2015-5?IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/6-things-us-stole-from-germa... Jets and Rockets were built by the Germans first. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160201-the-wwii-flying-wing-decades-ahead-of-its-time https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160201-the-wwii-flying-...
IanCal 6y ago
The US medical system wastes enough each year ($950B) to start an LHC sized project (~$10B), fully funded, in each US state every year and have enough left over to fully fund three new Apollo scale set of missions ($150B). You can't recover all that, but still, it's hard to picture just how big some of these figures are until you compare to other large costs.
- voodootrucker 6y ago
  That number is shocking. I'd love to know details. Can you provide a source please?
  - rweir 6y ago
    Just the US value from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... vs #2 (Switzerland) is $US800 000 000 000 for all US residents in extra spending.
    - marcusverus 6y ago
      I'm confused by these data. It's common knowledge that the US spends much more per capita on Healthcare, however the commonly offered explanation for this is that the private healthcare system in the US is less efficient than the public systems in Europe. But the graph in the provided link shows that US costs are split evenly between private spending and public spending. This is confusing because the private system in the US covers twice as many people as the public system. Per the US Census Bureau: "in 2018, private health insurance coverage continued to be more prevalent than public coverage, covering 67.3 percent of the population and 34.4 percent of the population, respectively."[0] If the provided data are correct, this would indicate that US private spending is nearly twice as efficient as public spending. What am I missing? [0]https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-267.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-26...
      - entropicdrifter 6y ago
mytailorisrich 6y ago
A lot of the Manhattan Project's spending was to scale the processes to industrial level in order to produce what was necessary to build bombs. The situation is quite different with nuclear fusion.
- Aeronwen 6y ago
  To be fair, it did scale for fusion bombs.

01100011 6y ago

Aren't you implying, intentionally or not, that a "Manhattan Project" level of expenditure, $25 billion, is enough to make meaningful progress towards commercial fusion energy production? I don't think that is a given.

xyzzyz 6y ago
The implication is rather that we’ve grown much more inept when it comes to getting things done.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Because there isn't an existential war going on forcing people to listen to the people who want to be economically efficient.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    Yeah it’s not like we’re in any kind of emergency that required reorganizing the whole society and economy, or anything like that.
- ars 6y ago
  Or because all the low hanging fruit is plucked.
IanCal 6y ago
That's roughly the total cost of ITER.
- tuatoru 6y ago
  According to David Edgerton's The Shock of the Old, Brigadier-General Leslie Groves had previously overseen the construction of several munitions plants costing much more than the entire cost of the Manhattan Engineering District project. 1. Chapter 8, "Invention", p198 in my paperback edition.

adrianN 6y ago

Things sure were cheap back then. ITER alone is expected to cost at least 22 billion Euros.

inglor_cz 6y ago

In my opinion, the main reason for success of the Manhattan Project wasn't the budget, but getting people such as Feynman, Fermi, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Szilard and Wheeler to work on the project together with a sense of urgency. 25 billion USD buys a lot of necessary stuff, but one Feynman doing his best to crack a secret of nature is priceless.

raverbashing 6y ago
Before the 10x programmers there were 10x physicists and the Manhattan project had a lot of those And as opposed to the current advertisement websites with auxiliary functions, I believe they had a more physics centered role
bwanab 6y ago
That budget was essential. A hundred Feymans would have been useless without those thousands of engineers and workers who built and operated the plants Kringle Washington and Tennessee that produced fissionable enough fissionable material.

Seanambers 6y ago

Interestingly enough, the most expensive program was The B-29 bomber program, which cost 50% more than the Manhattan project. Then one B-29 had an emergency landing in Sovjet and the soviets reversed engineered it into the TU-4. Tu-94 which is still flying is a newer scaled up version of this. It's amazing how much of the innovation the U.S did in the 1940s ended up in others hands(the bomb, B-29). The world would probably be very different if it hadn't happened.

wil421 6y ago
The physicists knew an atomic bomb was possible the US just did it fist. I am sure secrets got out that helped the Soviets create one but I think they would've created one regardless.
- yostrovs 6y ago
  History says that that's not true and the Soviets relied on extensive networks of spies to get tech secrets, be it the bomb or so many other military projects.
lenkite 6y ago
The US copied a lot from Germany too. https://www.businessinsider.com/6-things-us-stole-from-germans-during-wwii-2015-5?IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/6-things-us-stole-from-germa... Jets and Rockets were built by the Germans first. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160201-the-wwii-flying-wing-decades-ahead-of-its-time https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160201-the-wwii-flying-...

IanCal 6y ago

The US medical system wastes enough each year ($950B) to start an LHC sized project (~$10B), fully funded, in each US state every year and have enough left over to fully fund three new Apollo scale set of missions ($150B). You can't recover all that, but still, it's hard to picture just how big some of these figures are until you compare to other large costs.

voodootrucker 6y ago
That number is shocking. I'd love to know details. Can you provide a source please?
- rweir 6y ago
  Just the US value from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... vs #2 (Switzerland) is $US800 000 000 000 for all US residents in extra spending.
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    I'm confused by these data. It's common knowledge that the US spends much more per capita on Healthcare, however the commonly offered explanation for this is that the private healthcare system in the US is less efficient than the public systems in Europe. But the graph in the provided link shows that US costs are split evenly between private spending and public spending. This is confusing because the private system in the US covers twice as many people as the public system. Per the US Census Bureau: "in 2018, private health insurance coverage continued to be more prevalent than public coverage, covering 67.3 percent of the population and 34.4 percent of the population, respectively."[0] If the provided data are correct, this would indicate that US private spending is nearly twice as efficient as public spending. What am I missing? [0]https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-267.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-26...
    - entropicdrifter 6y ago

mytailorisrich 6y ago

A lot of the Manhattan Project's spending was to scale the processes to industrial level in order to produce what was necessary to build bombs. The situation is quite different with nuclear fusion.

Aeronwen 6y ago
To be fair, it did scale for fusion bombs.