Ames Laboratory

Web posted Thursday, November 23, 2000

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By Brandon Haddock
Staff Writer

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To build the atomic bomb, the scientists of the Manhattan Project and their descendants at nuclear weapons sites needed one element in particular - uranium - and they needed the rare earth metal in a purer form than seen before.

Ames Laboratory in Iowa discovered how to fill that need.

The lab pioneered techniques for producing the metal in pure form and large quantities, and manufactured much of the metal needed during the supersecret effort to invent the atomic bomb. Even today, the nuclear industry relies on many of the lab's discoveries.

The lab traces its roots to 1942, when Iowa State College professor Frank H. Spedding created a research and development program for the Manhattan Project, according to a lab history published by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Ames Project, as it was known at the time, found a method for successfully refining uranium. The effort eventually provided more than 2 million pounds of the metal to the Manhattan Project, including one-third of the uranium used in the world's first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago, according to the Energy Department.

The Atomic Energy Commission, the predecessor to today's Energy Department, formally chartered Dr. Spedding's program as the Ames Laboratory in 1947. In the years since, the lab has broadened its scope, and it now performs research in fields as diverse as solar energy, computer programming and materials engineering.

The lab is operated by Iowa State University for the Energy Department, and is located on the university's campus. It has an annual budget of about $27 million, and accounts for nearly 30 percent of the research dollars entering the university, according to the Energy Department.

The lab employs about 500 people, including more than 250 scientists and engineers.

Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409.

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