A B53 bomb is seen in this handout taken October 19, 2011 and released October 20, 2011.(Reuters / Handout)
In a secret project recently discovered, the United States planned to blow up the moon with a nuclear bomb in the 1950s as a display of the country’s strength during the Cold War space race.
The secret project, called “A Study of Lunar Research Flights”, as well as “Project A119” was never carried out but initially intended to intimidate the Soviet Union after their launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which demonstrated their technological power, the Daily Mail reports.
The sight of a magnificent nuclear flash from Earth was meant to terrify the Soviet Union and boost US confidence, physicist Leonard Reiffel, 85, told the Associated Press. The nuclear device would have been launched from a missile from an unknown location. It would have ignited upon impact with the moon, causing a massive explosion that was visible from Earth.
The detonation would have been the result of an atom bomb, since a hydrogen bomb was too heavy for a missile to carry the 238,000 miles to the moon.
Astronomer Carl Sagan was responsible for some of the calculations that could cause the nuclear detonation. Sagan, who later became a famous author of popular science, was a young graduate student at the time. He worked as a NASA advisor from the 1950s onward and died in 1996.
Isn't this giving someone an idea?
ReplyDelete650-The moon would hardly "blow up", a surface hit would, at best, be a lunar fireworks display. Nothing major, and a waste of a perfectly good nuke.
ReplyDeletePlease drop this on Egypt...
ReplyDeleteA early 60's movie was made about blowing up the moon.It was a poorly made sci-fi genre British flick (I think).I could'nt find it via google but I recall hearing "speculation" at the time that something like this had actually been planned.Like the earlier commentor stated,blowing up the moon is not possible.However,there would be a possibility of knocking it out of whack just enough to throw the earth into chaos.
ReplyDeleteisnt there somewhere in the middle east where this could be put to good use.... Like Syria or Egypt
ReplyDelete