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US planned to blow up the MOON with a nuclear bomb to win Cold War bragging rights over USSR
Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | 25 November 2012 | Daily Mail Reporter

Posted on 11/25/2012 4:28:28 PM PST by DogByte6RER

Revealed: How the U.S. planned to blow up the MOON with a nuclear bomb to win Cold War bragging rights over Soviet Union

- 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

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

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.

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Chit/Chat; History; Military/Veterans; Miscellaneous; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: 1950s; atomicbomb; braggingrights; coldwar; doctorstrangelove; fatman; moon; nuclearwarfare; nukes; nukethemoon; sovietunion; thebomb; ussr
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To: Beowulf9

Thank you - I was hoping that pic was here. :o)


81 posted on 11/25/2012 7:26:22 PM PST by mykroar (BAD-ANON: One Game At A Time)
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To: mykroar

Seemed perfect. Funny thing is, last night I was thinking of this picture.

Ever see the movie? I watched it for the first time today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDaOOw0MEE


82 posted on 11/25/2012 7:41:01 PM PST by Beowulf9
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To: Sherman Logan

Please...

The entire nuclear arsenal of the planet at the heighth of the cold war (~50,000 Mt) fabricated into one bomb would hardly make a noteworthy new crater on the moon aside from the fact that the surface in the blast area would be vitrified and reflect some more light.

Major extinction events here have been in association with energy releases on the line of 200,000,000 Mt, and while it screwed the earth up, it came no where near destoying it, or all life on it for that matter (which would actually probably take reliquifying the lithospere to a depth greater than 1 mile).


83 posted on 11/25/2012 7:43:03 PM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I believe that’s closer to 16 or 17%, I think you lost a decimal place there. If it was 1.2%, tides would be a few inches...


84 posted on 11/25/2012 7:49:11 PM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Damn, you appear to have been right, 1/6th volume and yet that much less mass... It must have a creamy filling!!!


85 posted on 11/25/2012 7:53:51 PM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: DogByte6RER
This was not much of a secret, as I recall hearing about it in the open media at the time. Of course, "blowing up the moon" is tabloid crap. A nuclear burst on the moon visible from earth would have been something different and impressive to say the least, but it was never much more than idle brainstorming. The concern about "danger to people on earth" is patent nonsense, since at the time we were testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere right here at home.
86 posted on 11/25/2012 8:01:59 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Axenolith

They say 1/4 the diameter, so if the densities were similar that is a ratio of 4 cubed, or 64. A bit under 2% by volume, and then the creamy filling factor (actually the moon does not boast a dense iron core as best we know).


87 posted on 11/25/2012 8:03:39 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: hinckley buzzard

The danger would have come if the rocket somehow did not make it to the moon, especially if it failed in low trajectory. Presumably the bomb would be set not to go boom in such an event, but it would be a source of radioactive dirt.


88 posted on 11/25/2012 8:05:25 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: pepsionice

That wouldn’t be the first catastrophe to result from it. Without the Moon we’d have no tides on Earth, the oceans would stagnate, and Earth would slowly die.


89 posted on 11/25/2012 8:19:11 PM PST by Tucker39
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To: Axenolith

I suspect if we put a crash program on it we could develop a bomb that would do more than that. I’m not saying we’ve got one ready in the garage.


90 posted on 11/25/2012 8:24:37 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Las Vegas Ron

“Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be a Moon-shattering kaboom!”


91 posted on 11/25/2012 8:29:29 PM PST by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com)
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To: DogByte6RER

And we just voted these nitwits in charge of our health care.


92 posted on 11/25/2012 8:38:34 PM PST by Plumres
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To: SES1066
Anybody care to guess what the lightest A-Bomb was at that time? I don’t know but I am willing to guess it was far more than 500 lbs. and then add G-Force resistance and an instrument package capable of controlling even a ballistic radar fused bomb would put it over the top there for that time period.

Actually The smallest US warhead was the W54

Physics package just 51 lbs. Complete warhead c100 (and the Soviet 8" mortar round was slighly lighter)

These were subkilton, but in the Nagasaki range was the W44/Tsetse at 175lb. The Brits considered using an anglised version of Tsetse (Tony) as a primary for their 60s bombs, but eventually decided on UK designed Katie, which was even lighter

These all date from the early 60s

93 posted on 11/25/2012 8:40:42 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth" - Voltaire)
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To: cripplecreek

All that radioactive dust would have floated around and eventually got back into the Earth’s atmosphere...maybe years later.

Most of the dust it kicked up would have fallen back to the moon. Besides tons of naturally occurring radioactive space dust falls to the earth every year.

Yup, we think we would do “so much damage” to the moon by putting a nuke on the moon....

Hubris, thy name is humanity!


94 posted on 11/25/2012 8:44:53 PM PST by GraceG
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To: ruesrose

Maybe the concept was that the Soviets would see us attacking the moon for no discernable reason, and conclude that we were so deranged, that they should just stay very far away from us.


95 posted on 11/25/2012 9:02:39 PM PST by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: NonValueAdded
It was lunacy, though, no question about that.

Haha, nice.
96 posted on 11/25/2012 9:07:38 PM PST by andyk (I have sworn...eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.)
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To: Revolting cat!

The B-52s did.

There’s a moon in the sky
It’s called the moon
And everybody is there, including,
Saturn, Mercury
Saturn, Venus
Saturn, Mars

OK, you’re right, it doesn’t rhyme.


97 posted on 11/25/2012 9:13:57 PM PST by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: Army Air Corps
Lager yield warheads ranged in weight from about 900 pounds to over 6,000 pounds

That's a LOT of beer!

98 posted on 11/26/2012 4:19:20 AM PST by hattend (Firearms and ammunition...the only growing industries under the Obama regime.)
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To: DogByte6RER
Is this what they were trying for?
99 posted on 11/26/2012 4:40:03 AM PST by jmcenanly ("The more corrupt the state, the more laws." Tacitus, Publius Cornelius)
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To: hattend

Not many are aware of the Lager Bombs. The trick was to shake them violently before lobbing them at the target.


100 posted on 11/26/2012 6:19:19 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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