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

• 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

By Daily Mail Reporter and Associated Press


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.

Plot: The U.S. was planning to launch an atomic bomb, like Fat Man, pictured above, that would be launched into space in a scrapped plan to blow up the moon

Brains of the operation: Astronomer Carl Sagan, left, was involved in the planning of the mission and physicist Leonard Reiffel, right, was the man in charge

 

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.


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