@wellerstein The B-29 program cost more than the Manhattan Project, but I don't see sites about it. Where did the money go? Expansion of existing factories? Why didn't it reshape American life? What does that tell us about how the Manhattan Project was transformative?
I think it's the difference between a massive secret superweapon program whose very existence was secret and whose purpose was opaque to most of those who made it, and an expanded version of a regular procurement program. The secrecy changes things.
