Cold War Madness: The 1958 Project A119 Moon Nuke Plan
Discover the shocking details of Project A119, the secret 1958 US Air Force plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon to intimidate the USSR during the Space Race.
The moon almost became a nuclear testing ground. In the late 1950s, driven by the fear of losing the Space Race, the United States devised a plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the lunar surface—just to show the world they could do it.
The Hidden History of the Project A119 Moon Nuke
Masked by the innocuous title "A Study of Lunar Research Flights," Project A119 was a top-secret Air Force initiative launched in 1958. According to reports from Boing Boing, the goal wasn't just scientific; it was a desperate psychological move to intimidate the Soviet Union after the success of Sputnik.
A young Carl Sagan was even recruited to calculate the visibility of the dust cloud resulting from the blast. Ultimately, the project was scrapped in 1959 because officials feared the public backlash and the potential radioactive contamination of the moon, which would ruin future exploration.
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