Nuclear technology the element plutonium possesses an isotope that is sufficiently unstable for this process to be usable. Terrestrial plutonium does not currently occur naturally in sufficient quantities for such use, so it must be manufactured in a nuclear reactor. Ultimately, the Manhattan Project manufactured nuclear weapons based on each of these elements. They detonated the first nuclear weapon in a test code-named "Trinity", near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The test was conducted to ensure that the implosion method of detonation would work, which it did. A uranium bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on the Japanese city Hiroshima on
British nuclear testing in the United States which led to the agreement on the use of the Maralinga test site in August 1954. The first of the British nuclear tests at Maralinga was held in September 1956. While British atomic bomb development represented an extraordinary scientific and technological achievement, hopes that the United States would be sufficiently impressed to restore the nuclear Special Relationship were dashed. In November 1952, the United States conducted Ivy Mike, the first successful test of a true thermonuclear device or hydrogen bomb. Britain was therefore still several years behind in nuclear weapons technology. The Defence Policy Committee, chaired by Churchill and consisting