You should read Rhodes’ “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” if you want to understand what incredible engineering feats academic scientists are capable of — when the people are tightly focused on achieving a single goal. You should also read Rhodes’ book if you want to understand why unguided fundamental scientific research itself is so critical, even when it doesn’t immediately seem useful to you: without the discoveries of science, nuclear fission wouldn’t have been understood. (Of course, many will disagree that the development atomic bomb is a good outcome, but that’s a very different conversation.)