How the U.S. planned to blow up the MOON with a nuclear bomb to win Cold War

[COLOR="#B22222"][SIZE=4]Revealed: How the U.S. planned to blow up the MOON with a nuclear bomb to win Cold War bragging rights over Soviet Union[/SIZE][/COLOR]

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Scientists were hoping for giant flash on the moon that would intimidate the Soviet Union

Aim of mission was to launch the nuke by 1959

Plan was later scrapped due to possible danger to people on Earth
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It may sound like a plot straight out of a science fiction novel, but a U.S. mission to blow up the moon with a nuke was very real in the 1950s.

At the height of the space race, the U.S. considered detonating an atom bomb on the moon as a display of America's Cold War muscle.

The secret project, innocuously titled 'A Study of Lunar Research Flights' and nicknamed 'Project A119,' was never carried out.

[B][COLOR="#FF0000"][SIZE=2]However, its planning included calculations by astronomer Carl Sagan, then a young graduate student, of the behavior of dust and gas generated by the blast.[/SIZE][/COLOR][/B]

Viewing the nuclear flash from Earth might have intimidated the Soviet Union and boosted U.S. confidence after the launch of Sputnik, physicist Leonard Reiffel told the AP in a 2000 interview.

Reiffel, now 85, directed the inquiry at the former Armour Research Foundation, now part of the Illinois Institute of Technology. He later served as a deputy director at NASA.

Sagan, who later became renowned for popularizing science on television, died in 1996.

The author of one of Sagan's biographies suggested that he may have committed a security breach in 1959 after revealing the classified project in an academic fellowship application. Reiffel concurred.

Under the scenario, a missile carrying a small nuclear device was to be launched from an undisclosed location and travel 238,000 miles to the moon, where it would be detonated upon impact.

The planners decided it would have to be an atom bomb because a hydrogen bomb would have been too heavy for the missile.

Reiffel said the nation’s young space program probably could have carried out the mission by 1959, when the Air Force deployed inter-continental ballistic missiles.

Military officials apparently abandoned the idea because of the danger to people on Earth in case the mission failed.

The scientists also registered concerns about contaminating the moon with radioactive material, Reiffel said.

[B][COLOR="#00FF00"]When contacted by the AP, the U.S. Air Force declined to comment on the project.[/COLOR][/B]


Read more: Cold War-era U.S. plan to bomb the moon with a nuclear bomb revealed | Mail Online

Originally posted by SajeevJino
Revealed: ...

Tabloid media at it again.

How on earth could this in any way be "REVEALED" when all the details about this story have been known for years.
It even has its own wikipedia page, (started last year) that clearly states the Sagan angle was "revealed" back in 1999.

The article makes it seem as if the united states wanted to completely destroy the moon by repetitively saying "blow up the moon".

reply to post by SajeevJino


Having some trouble with the links I see?


No matter, I like this topic


Have you heard about this - Tzar Bomba
BIG BOOM!

Biggest boom stick to ever hit this part of the universe





SS

I wonder if intimidating the Russians was the true goal of the plan. Maybe they'd just discovered someone living there and felt the need to eliminate them. I don't know but it could be a decent science fiction movie anyway.

Strict

Originally posted by Strictsum
I wonder if intimidating the Russians was the true goal of the plan. Maybe they'd just discovered someone living there and felt the need to eliminate them. I don't know but it could be a decent science fiction movie anyway.

Strict

Thats what I've read. Look anyone with half a brain and the time to do research knows that something is on the moon, its just too obvious. I think the russian part was a ruse for those in the project without a need to know and those that did were crazy enough to think they could take out an advanced race with a firecracker. Its a good thing they didn't do it. That we know of.

I smell a fish.

Why would they need to do this? Obviously they were trying to kill the aliens who were telling the astronauts not to go near there. The fact that they didn't blow the moon up and that we've not gone back, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt the legitimacy of this claim. The Aliens won the moon war.

Are they preparing to retaliate though? Are they preparing to send moon rockets to earth, to annihilate the human species?

Thank god we have Richard Branson taking the wheel as we head back into space. Commander Branson will make sure we don't fly away with our space tails between our legs. not this time.

Moon people, who are they anyway? A bunch of space hippies, good for nothing greys. Nukes are too good for 'em.

So they hoped to create a flash on the moon with a nuke? I recall them trying that a few years ago and it was an absolute dud. Could barely even see a flicker with a telescope let alone the naked eye.

reply to post by Bilky


Can't believe I may have actually been onto something with that. It was just one of those weird theories that pops into my strange mind sometimes. Good to know I wasn't the only one wacky enough to say it.

Strict

I thought the US was saying they were bombing the moon to "find water"

reply to post by Infi8nity

That's the impression i got from just reading the thread title-my first though was-THE OCEANS.TIDES.We need the moon for tidal activity,don't we? Correct me if im wrong,but if that is correct,it would have not been smart to blow up the moon.The oceans are dying-but damn,we showed those Reds a thing or 2!!..?? If it was meant as just:detonate a nuclear device on the moon(without the capacity to blow it up) its still asinine.Btw,what size device would be needed to blow up the moon completely,anyway?

correct me if im wrong; but isnt the the moon the reason we have waves in the ocean? if we didnt have waves wouldnt water be stagnant? would we still have wind without the moon?

The Earth can't exist in it's current state, without our moon. We've known that for quite some time. I doubt the US ever even thought about blowing up the moon.

They didnt go through with the plan for it would have had one big backfire....an insignificant result. From a Lunar Distance away no one would have seen the flash. Russia would have laughed their way into a nuclear war.

lol.. an old coldwar era nuke would NOT 'blow up the moon"... I don't know why media reporters are saying that.. it would take 8000 megatons at LEAST to 'blow it up', and thats only after drilling down to the core, or close enough..

silly.. thank god for Sagan.

Classified video detailing the plan!

Let's blow up the moon!

reply to post by Pharyax


would probably have to drill all the way through in many places on a ci.......no it couldnt be done. And would serve no purpose.....

steppin back out of this rabbit hole


ETA: it would be easier to destroy the soviets, which is another hole not worth going into....Idealism doesn't die, it gets left behind and then revisited

Reply to post by SajeevJino

I think life on this planet relies on the moon. Blowing it up would make no sense. It might upset the surfing community.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by cass1dy09


They didn't bomb the moon to find water, they crashed a probe into it and analyzed what was thrown off the moon from it. There's a huge difference.

And as many have said, there is no way that they could have blown the moon up with cold war nuclear weapons, or even with modern nuclear weapons, without getting it deep inside the moon, which is probably impossible to do right now.

We couldn't "blow up the moon" if we wanted to.

Hell, we couldn't blow off a nice sized chunk of it. Nukes seem really really powerful, and they are in terms of what they can do to a small city. But look at the awesome damage done by all the underground test shots - wait - there wasn't any really awesome damage was there.

The energy required to "blow up" a planet ala Star Wars is roughly that required to place the planet's mass in orbit about itself. Go figure.