Because this sort of research was started by a stupid letter by a Physicist to the US president: work on nuclear fission now because ... probably a huge bomb ca

Because this sort of research was started by a stupid letter by a Physicist to the US president: work on nuclear fission now because ... probably a huge bomb can be made with this process. That physicist was Leo Szilard ... and he was right. Not researching it at any point would probably have lead to the US ceasing to exist by now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93Szilard_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93Szilard_lette... Congress still puts huge amounts of cash into researching this. Because both potential outcomes: large-scale controlled energy production, and bombs, would have huge consequences in just about any aspect of our lives. Positive and negative.