Editing Trinity (nuclear test) (section)

===Decision===
[[File:Trinity Test Site.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|right|Map of the Trinity Site]]
The idea of testing the implosion device was brought up in discussions at Los Alamos in January 1944 and attracted enough support for Oppenheimer to approach Groves. Groves gave approval, but he had concerns. The Manhattan Project had spent a great deal of money and effort to produce the plutonium, and he wanted to know whether there would be a way to recover it. The Laboratory's Governing Board then directed [[Norman Ramsey]] to investigate how this could be done. In February 1944, Ramsey proposed a small-scale test in which the explosion was limited in size by reducing the number of generations of chain reactions, and that it take place inside a sealed containment vessel from which the plutonium could be recovered.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|pp=174–175}}

The means of generating such a controlled reaction were uncertain, and the data obtained would not be as useful as that from a full-scale explosion.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|pp=174–175}} Oppenheimer argued that the bomb "<!--implosion gadget -->must be tested in a range where the energy release is comparable with that contemplated for final use."{{sfn|Norris|2002|p=395}} In March 1944, he obtained Groves's tentative approval for testing a full-scale explosion inside a containment vessel, although Groves was still worried about how he would explain the loss of "a billion dollars worth" of plutonium in the event the test failed.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|pp=174–175}}