Friday, April 24, 2015 | Volume 210 | Number 144 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
Iowa State remembers its role in WWII Manhattan Project By Zane.Satre @iowastatedaily.com
college in Ames, Iowa. Between 1942 and 1946, scientists at Iowa State College, as the university was then called, n April 24, 1945, President devised a method to produce pure Harry Truman received a uranium metal for the Manhattan note from Henry Stimson, Project, and eventually produced his secretary of war, requesting an 1,000 tons of uranium for the war urgent meeting. Truman, who’d effort. In 1937 Iowa State hired Dr. become president following Franklin Roosevelt’s death only Frank Spedding, a renowned rare12 days before, had conducted earth chemist, as its new head of numerous meetings like this as he physical chemistry. At the time tried to guide America through the Spedding joined, the only other member of the department was end of World War II. When Stimson arrived at the Harley Wilhelm, a chemist who White House later that day, he specialized in metallurgy. In January 1942, Spedding brought U.S. Army Gen. Leslie Groves with him. Together, the was asked to join a top-secret two men briefed the president on group of scientists at the Univera top-secret scientific program sity of Chicago. The group, led that was designing the first ever by the famous physicist Enrico atomic bomb, a weapon they Fermi, was trying to use chainhoped could bring an end to the reactions in uranium metal to war. create the first nuclear reactor. The $26 billion program, Progress on the reactor was code-named the Manhattan Proj- slow, however, due to a scarcity of ect, involved nearly 130,000 peo- uranium. Self-sustaining nuclear ple at locations across the country. chain reactions can only occur in As it happened, one of the crucial uranium that is free of impurities. breakthroughs in the project took This type of metal is rare in nature, place years earlier at a humble and was especially hard to procure during a war. Spedding, with his b a c k ground in rare-earth chemistry, was tasked with finding a way to purify uranium from raw ore. However, after seeing the inadequate facilities in Chicago, he decided to bechesi Irwin Jen Courtesy ehan Luc s re e B n o f gin working from f (l o B e y re s ft thorium ction Courte reductio ) and Dick Griffitehan Lucchesi mb redu biscuits Ames instead. o b b n e h b p m in o re iu s m pect a ssed into b. Uraniu The uran yields uranium ots. s m m Upon returns a c ll ra bricks or p process be cast into ing “biscuits s can ing to Iowa State, n a .” c t a
O
th
Spedding immediately hired his colleague Wilhelm, as well as several of their graduate students, to start designing a purification process. Steve Karsjen, public affairs director at the Ames Laboratory, interviewed several members of team about their work. “That whole process started right over in Gilman Hall,” Karsjen said. “I remember they talked about working 16-17 hour days and seven days a week there.” While work on the purification process ramped up, Spedding went to Iowa State President Charles Friley to get official clearance for the Ames Project, as it was called, to take place on campus. In a later interview, Spedding described how he approached the college president. “Dr. [Friley] had to take me on faith because I told him we were going to do a very secret project, and that I couldn’t tell him about it,” Spedding said. Despite not knowing any of the project details, Friley signed off and allowed it to go forward. At that point, Spedding began splitting his time between Ames and the metallurgical project in Chicago. “That was no treat,” Karsjen said. “Because he would spend five days in Chicago and then get on the train and work all weekend [in Ames], then get back on the train Sunday night and go back to Chicago.” In Spedding’s absence, Wilhelm led the work in Ames, all the while keeping his superior up-todate on their progress. “They would work all week, and then Spedding would come back on the weekends and would have what have been famously
Spedding Wilh el
m
called ‘Speddinars’,” Karsjen said. “All the graduate students and everybody working on the project would come into a conference room and they would tell Spedding what they had been doing that week.” Using this system, the Iowa State team spent the spring and summer of 1942 working to perfect the uranium purification process. Sam Houk, a chemistry professor and analytical chemist at the Ames Laboratory, learned about Spedding and the process he underwent. “Spedding and Wilhelm had a lot of experience purifying rare earth elements with the high-temperature procedures for making them,” Houk said. “Uranium has some similarity to the rare-earth elements, so [the procedures] were adapted to make uranium instead.” In September 1942, the Ames Project finally succeeded in producing an 11-pound block of pure uranium. Spedding and Wilhelm personally delivered it to the metallurgical project in Chicago, where it was received with shock. “[Their] eyes bugged out when they saw an 11-pound piece,” Wilhelm said. “They paid $10,000 for a two-pound piece
AMES PROJECT p4
Regents pass end zone name change
SNAPSHOT
By Eric.Wirth @iowastatedaily.com
Sam Greene/Iowa State Daily
ROTC members commemorate seniors’ graduations with cross-campus run Members from multiple branches of the ROTC program ran around campus today as a celebration of the year’s graduating seniors have spent at Iowa State. The April 23 run around campus symbolizes the journey that these students have taken as they progressed through the ROTC program. Students may come in not knowing what sort of career they want to pursue. Going through the entire ROTC training might not be for everyone, but it may offer a sort of guide to lost students. The military is a way for people to discover things about themselves, the people around them, and the world in which they live.
The Board of Regents unanimously voted April 23 to change the name of the Jack Trice End Zone Club to the Sukup End Zone Club. The renaming of the end zone club to the Sukup End Zone Club was submitted to the board along with the rest of the items on the Property and Facilities Committee’s agenda, of which the board approved unanimously. Another item discussed was the approval of the sale of $30 million in dormitory revenue bonds that are to be sold for the construction of Buchanan Residence Hall II. Of the bids received for financing of the bonds, Robert W. Baird and Co. won the bid at an interest rate of 3.19 percent. The board approved the sale of the bonds unanimously. There was also an update on the search to fill the University of
BOR p11