Project A119 The Plot to Blow Up the Moon

Geon

Donor
In the late 1950's the U.S. military had laid plans to detonate a thermonuclear warhead on the Moon. They hoped to measure its effects later either with manned or unmanned spacecraft. Here is a link to this entirely insane project.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...w-up-the-moon/ar-BBTjMu1?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=iehp

Assuming they managed to succeed and given the technology of the time I think it likely they might have I have a few questions.

  1. How big would the yield of the bomb have to be in order to be seen from the Earth? This was meant to be partially for propaganda purposes.
  2. What launch vehicle would they have used at that time to get the warhead to the Moon?
  3. How would the explosion have affected the Moon?
  4. Part of the Project involved a manned exploration of the site once the technology became available. Would the site be safe to visit by 1969 assuming the space race went as it did in OTL?
  5. What would have been the reaction to the explosion back here on Earth?
 
To the naked eye, probably a Hiroshima sized explosion would be big enough. Weather conditions on earth would determine who could actually see it. With telescopes it's possible to see the actual Apollo landers still on the moon, so no problem seeing a nuke.
I don't think any launch vehicle in existence in the 1950s could have done it. You'd probably need a modified Titan II (available in early 60s) with a light enough payload that it could reach the moon.
The explosion would have no affect on the moon whatsoever. The moon gets hit by meteors all the time and some have nuke-sized energy releases.
Visiting the site in 1969 probably would have been safe enough. The astronauts would want to wipe their feet before returning to the LEM :)
The reaction on earth would probably be to push harder for treaties to ban weapons of mass destruction from space. Such a treaty was signed in 1967.
 
Atlas with Agena or Centaur upper stage

Agena was able to get payloads to Mars, a small boosted fission bomb to the Moon would have been less weight.

Agena was based off a developed, but never deployed rocket pod for the B-58 Hustler.

Available OTL in January 1959
 
Part of the Project involved a manned exploration of the site once the technology became available. Would the site be safe to visit by 1969 assuming the space race went as it did in OTL?

Presumably the blast would send a large cloud of radioactive debris from the lunar surface into space. During one of the Plumbbob tests here on Earth in 1957 a sub-kiloton bomb sent a metal plate flying into the atmosphere at over 66km/s. The Moon's escape velocity is 2.38km/s, so the fallout from a nuclear detonation on the lunar surface probably wouldn't come back down again. It might even reach Earth.

Of course, as we all know, the moon is covered with a mile-deep layer of dust. That's why the Americans had to call off the Apollo project. It wasn't practical to build a lander light enough to rest on the surface. We've all seen the lunar "snowshoes" the astronauts were expected to wear, and it's obvious in retrospect that it was never going to work.

The plan to have astronauts fly above the surface with a rocket-powered lunar flyer was more practical, but what was the point of going to the Moon if people couldn't stand on it? My hunch is that a nuclear detonation on the moon would have ignited the oxygen molecules stored in the lunar dust, causing a gigantic conflagration that would send the moon careering out of orbit.

Careering out of orbit into a terrifying universe filled with tentacle monsters and alien brains made out of foam.
 
In the late 1950's the U.S. military had laid plans to detonate a thermonuclear warhead on the Moon. They hoped to measure its effects later either with manned or unmanned spacecraft. Here is a link to this entirely insane project.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...w-up-the-moon/ar-BBTjMu1?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=iehp

Assuming they managed to succeed and given the technology of the time I think it likely they might have I have a few questions.

  1. How big would the yield of the bomb have to be in order to be seen from the Earth? This was meant to be partially for propaganda purposes.
  2. What launch vehicle would they have used at that time to get the warhead to the Moon?
  3. How would the explosion have affected the Moon?
  4. Part of the Project involved a manned exploration of the site once the technology became available. Would the site be safe to visit by 1969 assuming the space race went as it did in OTL?
  5. What would have been the reaction to the explosion back here on Earth?
Previous thread on this topic, for what it's worth: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-eisenhower-blows-up-the-moon.456503/
 
In the late 1950's the U.S. military had laid plans to detonate a thermonuclear warhead on the Moon. They hoped to measure its effects later either with manned or unmanned spacecraft. Here is a link to this entirely insane project.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...w-up-the-moon/ar-BBTjMu1?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=iehp

Assuming they managed to succeed and given the technology of the time I think it likely they might have I have a few questions.

  1. How big would the yield of the bomb have to be in order to be seen from the Earth? This was meant to be partially for propaganda purposes.
  2. What launch vehicle would they have used at that time to get the warhead to the Moon?
  3. How would the explosion have affected the Moon?
  4. Part of the Project involved a manned exploration of the site once the technology became available. Would the site be safe to visit by 1969 assuming the space race went as it did in OTL?
  5. What would have been the reaction to the explosion back here on Earth?

1 Well using the ranger program launched by an atlas agena as a benchmark you are limited to an impact payload of about 300 kg (on a closer look atlas-agena max TLI payload was 390kg making the W30 just a tad too heavy.). This SEVERELY limits your payload in the late 1950s. Only real option will be the 350kg W9 warhead or one of its derivatives which will give you around 10 kt yield, as far as spectacle goes this would be thoroughly lacklustre. Potential problem is whether the van allen belts will affect the warhead though I don't know enough about either to say anything specific about it.

2 As previously mentioned, atlas-Agena is your best bet. With the success rate of this rocket at that time you will have a LOT of failures which probably grounds the program after the first try.

3 Not much you'd have a new crater among millions and not a particularly noteworthy one.

4 After the dust settles the area would be pretty safe with a few additional precautions to the space suits. Risk of Ingestion and inhaling of radioactive material is zero. biggest hazard is dust left on the suits.

5 Well the flash would be hard to notice unless you were specifically looking for it. It would be small and only last for an instant. Reaction would probably be largely negative as opposed to the scientific ranger probes.
 
Last edited:
Only real option will be the 350kg W9 warhead or one of its derivatives which will give you around 10 kt yield

W-33 used for the 203mm cannon. up to 40kt with boosting, and in production in 1959. around 240 pounds.

Without an atmosphere, nukes aren't as impressive, but a surface blast would kick up enough dust for telescope viewing, low gravity and no wind would extend things
 
W-33 used for the 203mm cannon. up to 40kt with boosting, and in production in 1959. around 240 pounds.

Without an atmosphere, nukes aren't as impressive, but a surface blast would kick up enough dust for telescope viewing, low gravity and no wind would extend things

40kt is the Y2 version which wasn't tested until 1962, speculation is that this was a boosted fission variant original Y1 did not have that yield option.

Fitting that to an atlas agena before the 1963 PTBT is probably not feasible as it would require time to outfit it with control systems to make mid course flight corrections not to mention several failed launches and outright misses like Ranger. (missing with an impact detonated nuclear device would be fun all by itself and probably make for a better AH scenario as there is considerable risk that it could impact earth. Space nukes are a doomed prospect by 63 either way)
 
Last edited:
Top