I think that’s unlikely, and what that confluence of factors produced was speed rather than any otherwise undiscoverable knowledge.
“A Manhattan Project for X” (cancer, renewable energy, quantum computing, …) is a common political refrain, but misses what made the original successful: The scientists had a pretty good idea what was possible and how one might do it. The devil was in the details but the picture was, in outline, quite clear, if enough money were spent and the right brains harnessed.
Now, one might argue that speed still made a world-historical difference: Because the weapon was made in time to be used in the current conflict, we did not have to wait until the next conflict to fully understand its significance, at which point it might have been too late.
“A Manhattan Project for X” (cancer, renewable energy, quantum computing, …) is a common political refrain, but misses what made the original successful: The scientists had a pretty good idea what was possible and how one might do it. The devil was in the details but the picture was, in outline, quite clear, if enough money were spent and the right brains harnessed.
Now, one might argue that speed still made a world-historical difference: Because the weapon was made in time to be used in the current conflict, we did not have to wait until the next conflict to fully understand its significance, at which point it might have been too late.