The core, assembled, was designed to be at "−5 cents". This was pre-empted by Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, while preparations were still being made for it to be couriered to Kirtland Field. It was anticipated that it would be ready by August 16 to be dropped on August 19. On August 13, the third bomb was scheduled. Truman was waiting to see the effects of the first two attacks. Marshall added an annotation, "It is not to be released on Japan without express authority from the President", as President Harry S. Providing there are no unforeseen difficulties in manufacture, in transportation to the theatre or after arrival in the theatre, the bomb should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after August 17th or 18th. We have gained 4 days in manufacture and expect to ship the final components from New Mexico on August 12th or 13th. The next bomb of the implosion type had been scheduled to be ready for delivery on the target on the first good weather after August 24th, 1945. Marshall, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, to inform him that:
Groves, Jr., wrote to General of the Army George C. As plutonium was found to corrode readily, the sphere was then coated with nickel. The metallurgists used a plutonium-gallium alloy, which stabilized the δ phase allotrope of plutonium so it could be hot pressed into the desired spherical shape. Material for "HS-7, R-3" was in the Los Alamos metallurgy section, and would also be ready by September 5 (it is not certain whether this date allowed for the unmentioned "HS-8 "'s fabrication to complete the fourth core). The refined plutonium was shipped from the Hanford Site in Washington state to the Los Alamos Laboratory an inventory document dated August 30 shows Los Alamos had expended "HS-1, 2, 3, 4 R-1" (the components of the Trinity and Nagasaki bombs) and had in its possession "HS-5, 6 R-2", finished and in the hands of quality control. Both died following supercriticality accidents involving the "demon core". The two physicists Harry Daghlian (center left) and Louis Slotin (center right) during the Trinity Test. The core of the device used in the Trinity Test at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in July did not have such a ring. It consisted of three parts: two plutonium-gallium hemispheres and a ring, designed to keep neutron flux from "jetting" out of the joined surface between the hemispheres during implosion. The demon core (like the second core used in the bombing of Nagasaki) was, when assembled, a solid 6.2-kilogram (14 lb) sphere measuring 89 millimeters (3.5 in) in diameter. Physicists Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin suffered acute radiation syndrome (ARS) and died soon after, while others present in the lab were also exposed. Both experiments were designed to demonstrate how close the core was to criticality with a tamper, but in each case, the core was accidentally placed into a critical configuration. It was involved in two criticality accidents at the Los Alamos Laboratory on August 21, 1945, and May 21, 1946, each resulting in a fatality. The core was prepared for shipment as part of the third nuclear weapon to be used in Japan, but when Japan surrendered, the core was retained at Los Alamos for testing and potential later use. The demon core was a spherical 6.2-kilogram (14 lb) subcritical mass of plutonium 89 millimeters (3.5 in) in diameter, manufactured during World War II by the United States nuclear weapon development effort, the Manhattan Project, as a fissile core for an early atomic bomb. The sphere of plutonium is surrounded by neutron-reflecting tungsten carbide blocks. A re-creation of the experiment involved in the 1945 incident.
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