Analyze the Triumph and Tragedy of the Manhattan Project The making of American's first atomic bomb was a long and triumphant journey. The United States set out on the development because of fear-fear that the Nazi Germany would develop the bomb first which would then use it against the U.S. In fact, the Germans had a head start because the underlying scientific fact, the fission of uranium, was discovered by two Germans. The effort to develop an atomic bomb was code- named the "Manhattan Project." On July 16, 1945, Oppenheimer's and Groves's units conducted a t