[Aktungbby]

There were four known major deposits of uranium in 1940: in Colorado,Canada, in Czechoslovakia, and the Congo.... ore to be purchased at $1.45 a pound

So much 'bang 4 the buck'! When a reluctant Albert Einstein wrote the letter to President Roosevelt that set the American atomic bomb project in motion, he ruefully predicted to his colleagues: “You realize, once the
military have this, they will use it, no matter what you say.” http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/educators/study-guides/history_decision-to-drop-bomb.htm We didn't have a lot of fissile uranium...but we sure cornered the market in Thinman and Fatman casings! I admit to a less-than-impartial-bias here; My dad was scheduled for the invasion of Japan(in B-29's) in WWII; having worked/promoted his way out of expendable beach-assault flame-thrower duty... and pointed out to me (crushing my lofty ideals forever) that I wouldn't be posting at if not for the bomb...I'll have a Manhattan on that!with a Hamm's chaser...