People are only just discovering the US wanted to nuke the moon for this terrifying reason
People are only just learning of a strange US plot to bomb the moon, and the reason is even more bizarre than the plan.
For a company that has famously frequented the giant space rock, NASA was allegedly in on a ploy to send nuclear bomb to the celestial body in the 1950s.
At a time when the space race was at full steam and the USSR was inching closer to its goal of being the first to land astronauts on the moon, the US was feeling the pressure.
Of course, Neil Armstrong ended up being the first person to step foot on the moon's surface in 1969, but history could have changed in a scary way had the US gone through with its original plan.
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While some social media users have said it 'sounds like something from a Looney Tunes cartoon', the terrifying plan was actually very real.
The US' top secret Project A119 had the totally normal goal of dropping a hydrogen bomb on the moon.
Now, a hydrogen bomb is far more destructive than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, and it would need to be, considering the aim was to create a giant crater on the surface of the moon to mark the US’s territory if the Russian astronauts got too close to their goal.
The plan was in retaliation to the USSR sending the first satellite to space, known as Sputnik 1.
In collaboration with the Air Force, respected scientist Leonard Reiffel created reports from May 1958 and January 1959 which documented whether the plan would work. Reiffel insisted in 2000 it was 'technically feasible'.
What they wanted was to happen was for the bomb to detonate on the Moon’s Terminator Line – the border between the light and dark side of the Moon – which would create a flash of light visible to everyone, particularly the Kremlin.
This would show the nation that the US had the technology to win wars, and that it wasn’t a country to mess with.
You also need to remember that in the 50s, America was stuck in the Cold War and arms race, and the only edge it had on Russia was its ability to advance its missiles faster.
But Russia was close behind.
"Project A119 was one of several ideas that were floated for an exciting response to Sputnik," said Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and nuclear technology, told the BBC.
He said the plan also included shooting down Sputnik, which, he said, ‘feels very spiteful.’
However, instead of doing so, they chose to put up their own satellite in the late 50s.
As for why the moon remains un-nuked, the Air Force were worried the missile launch could go wrong and impact the Earth. Nice of them to think of that, I guess.
The top-secret plan was fortunately put to bed, and amazingly only surfaced in the 1990s after one of the scientists involved namedropped it on a job application.
Britt Jones