grew to become the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)—a multibillion-dollar hydra of wartime science and technology operations that supported the work of thousands of scientists and engineers. OSRD’s early work developing an atomic weapon eventually became the Manhattan Project, overseen by J. Robert Oppenheimer. With OSRD funding and guidance, American scientists invented radar, invested in malaria treatments, developed an early influenza vaccine, and built the foundations for early computing.
