ABSTRACT
One of the first areas in which the military–industrial–academic complex merged with big science to form technoscience was in the area of nuclear research and new weapons design. Atomic bombs were still being handmade and it took up to 30 days to assemble one bomb. With the limits on the atomic arsenal, the United States' reliance on nuclear weapons to contain Soviet expansionism met with mixed results. Even during World War II, a small number of scientists, led by Edward Teller, realized that the successful development of weapons based on fission opened the door to the possibility of even more powerful weapons based on nuclear fusion. Although Teller did some theoretical work on the H-bomb at Los Alamos during the war, any significant work had to wait for the creation of the atomic bomb which could act as a match to begin a thermonuclear reaction.
