The U.S. government’s Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the first nuclear weapons, was a massive but highly secretive World War II undertaking that involved thousands of scientists and engineers at dozens of sites across the nation. They included a few with Rolla connections, most notably Thomas G. Day, a professor of organic chemistry at S&T in the 1940s, who served as an “administrative assistant to one of the scientific divisions” and “gave himself wholeheartedly to the work and made a real contribution to it,” wrote Harold C. Urey, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist who played a significant role in the development of the atom bomb. Another Rolla professor, Harold Q. Fuller, worked on the Manhattan Project during 1944-1945 before joining the S&T physics faculty, where he served as department chair 1948-1970. According to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, two Rolla graduates also worked on the Manhattan Project. Max L. Custis, a 1944 chemical engineering graduate, and Sam Tarson, who earned a mechanical engineering degree in 1947, both worked in a “Special Engineer Detachment” at the K-25 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Share This Story

Spark a Memory?

Share your story! Fill out the form below to share your fondest memory or anecdote of S&T. If you'd prefer not typing, you can also share by phone at 833-646-3715 (833-Miner150).

Clued in on Jeopardy!

Clued in on Jeopardy!

This Missouri S&T professor of foreign languages was once a clue on the popular TV game show Jeopardy! If you…

Raíssa Sousa and Welenton Webler

Raíssa Sousa and Welenton Webler

Raíssa Sousa and Welenton Webler were both exchange students from Brazil when they met in August 2015. “We didn’t know…

Bringing back the wetlands

Bringing back the wetlands

Donald Hey, a 1963 graduate in civil engineering, is passionate about proving the economic efficiency and sustainability of using restored…

Brandi (Andersen) and Patrick VerSteeg

Brandi (Andersen) and Patrick VerSteeg

Brandi (Andersen) and Patrick VerSteeg met during Opening Week in 2006. “My roommate and I knew Patrick’s roommate from Jackling…

Leading a national lab

Leading a national lab

At Sandia National Laboratories, Joan Woodard, a mathematics graduate in 1973, was the executive vice president and deputy laboratories director…

Houston, we have a slight case of nausea

Houston, we have a slight case of nausea

NASA referred to its KC-125 aircraft as the “weightless wonder” because it carried college students and their experiments into micro-gravity…