A Secret Base Already On The Moon? | Unveiled
In this video, Unveiled takes a closer look at the bizarre theory that there's a secret nuclear base ALREADY built on the moon! This is an idea that dates back to the Cold War years, when so much was kept hidden from the watching public... but could America AND Russia really have a JOINT facility on the lunar surface?
<h4>
Is There a Secret Base Already on the Moon?</h4>
In the 2020s, all eyes are firmly back on the moon. It’s been 50 years since the last crewed lunar mission, due to budget cuts at NASA and a desire to focus on low-Earth orbit. But finally, NASA is planning to build a more permanent outpost to enable further lunar exploration – unless, of course, they’ve already done this all before …
This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: is there already a secret base on the moon?
In November 2022, NASA launched Artemis 1, the beginning of the long-awaited Artemis program. Artemis 1 saw the launch of the uncrewed Orion spacecraft, developed initially for the Constellation program – a lunar return program that received attention in the 2000s, before being canceled by the Obama administration. Artemis 1 was really just a test flight for Orion and NASA’s new Space Launch System - a super heavy-lift launch vehicle. Orion successfully went into orbit around the moon, before returning to Earth and splashing down in the Pacific.
In the coming years, the Artemis program will ramp up, with the ultimate goal of establishing a permanent human presence on the moon. Scheduled for 2024, Artemis 2 will involve a crewed lunar flyby in Orion, and Artemis 3 a crewed lunar landing in 2025. The mid 2020s will also hopefully see the launch of the Lunar Gateway, a space station that will serve as a communication hub and short-term habitation module in lunar orbit. The Gateway and Artemis are set to link up in 2027, when Artemis 4 docks with the station. Thereafter, the Gateway will be an outpost in orbit for astronauts to use to descend to the moon, via a lunar lander. Ultimately, it’s they who will build a base on the moon itself. Of course, they’ll also need a way off the moon, back to the Gateway. Excitingly, it’s also been suggested by NASA scientists that the Gateway could someday be an ideal stopping point on a far longer journey to Mars. The Lunar Gateway is a joint endeavor between NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, and Japan’s space agency, JAXA.
This ambitious lunar program is not, of course, the first lunar program we’ve ever had. If you were lucky enough to be alive at the time, you witnessed first-hand the biggest space success in history: the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, followed by many more moon landings. Apollo ended early, however, with Apollo 17 in 1972. It remains the last time that humans landed on the moon. After the United States won the space race, the government massively cut funding to NASA, and it’s had to make do with far less money ever since.
It's not just Apollo that was given the red light by the US government, however. In 1959, a full decade before America’s eventual space race victory, the US had another idea about what its lunar future might be: Project Horizon. Project Horizon was drafted and costed, with many ardent supporters – until President Eisenhower rejected the idea. It aimed to establish a permanent US outpost on the moon, staffed by 12 people. This is astonishing stuff, considering the current world record for the highest number of humans in space at any one time, set in December 2021, is 19. Project Horizon was initially slated to cost the US government $6 billion, the equivalent of $60 billion today, which interestingly still makes it considerably cheaper than Apollo ended up being. Apollo ran up a bill of over $250 billion when adjusted for inflation. But why was Eisenhower against Project Horizon? Why didn’t he want to put Americans on the moon years before Kennedy pledged to do just that?
Well, Project Horizon wasn’t about furthering humankind’s scientific development. Like much of the space race, Horizon was tied up inextricably with the nuclear arms race, and that lunar outpost wasn’t for research at all: it was to man a giant nuclear missile site on the moon. The plan came from the US military, rather than NASA. NASA had been established in 1958, the year before Project Horizon was proposed. It was the fact that NASA now had dominion over America’s space programs that led Eisenhower to reject it. In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing Eisenhower made this choice … unless, of course, he DID approve Horizon, in secret?
In 1967, the world’s governments signed the famous Outer Space Treaty, in an effort to prevent nuclear missiles ever being placed into outer space. They hoped to keep space a place for research and the betterment of our species. But in the intervening eight years between Horizon being pitched and the Treaty being ratified, could the US have begun building on the moon in secret? Could it have continued building even DESPITE the treaty? In much of the world, the United States has become quite notorious for violations of international law, as well as for refusing to sign or ratify laws and treaties with broad support. There are some people out there who seem to believe that there IS a top-secret American base on the far side of the moon - out of sight and out of mind for the rest of us on Earth.
On the far side of the moon, such a base would be invisible to Earth eyes. As the moon is tidally locked, we’d never be able to see it from our home planet’s surface. The moon itself also blocks radio communications between Earth and its far side. This does pose a problem for lunar missions. When the China National Space Administration launched the Chang’e 4 mission to the moon’s far side, it also had to launch Queqiao, a relay satellite that allowed the Yutu-2 rover to communicate with mission control back in China. Then again, this could also be a boon if you wanted to hide what you were doing on the moon, because there would be no way for any other country to find out about it aside from physically going there or sending a satellite to photograph it. Of course, since the Chang’e 4 mission resulted in a successful soft landing, it’s now perhaps very unlikely that a secret American base is there. If the China National Space Administration had noticed it, they wouldn’t have much reason to keep it secret from the rest of the world.
Similarly, if there was an American base up there, it’s very possible that the Soviets would have found out about it, too, and wouldn’t have given up on going to the moon (like they did) in the 1960s. The Soviets had plenty of spies in place in United States science programs - for example, reporting back about the Manhattan Project during World War II years before the US dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So the USSR likely would have known about such a base if one existed. And they wouldn’t have let something as significant as that stand… when it would have been so risky for them.
Unless, of course, the USSR giving up on the moon was an elaborate ploy, too. The Soviets were, for years, far ahead of the US in the space race; the first satellite, the first animals in space, the first human in space, all these milestones were reached first by the USSR. The Soviets even had numerous proposed moon bases, like Zvezda and the Lunar Expeditionary Complex. They only fell behind upon the death of the visionary rocket engineer Sergei Korolev. As such, while they’ve never put a person on the moon, they certainly had the technology to do so. As well as building rockets on par with America’s, the Soviets had the first space station, Salyut, along with several others, until the collaborative ISS was launched. It’s arguably harder to keep humans alive in space than it would be on the moon, because at least the moon has gravity and some protection from the sun in its craters. Since the technology has existed for years, then, and both superpowers had lunar programs at one point, could they BOTH have secret, nuclear bases ON the moon?
Do YOU think such a thing could be possible? What’s your verdict?
IF both the United States and Russia had military bases on the moon, it could provide a reason for both sides not to tell on the other. It would be mutually assured destruction in a more figurative sense, as they’d both be seen to be breaking international law. But, again, it’s very possible that the bases would have been spotted by the China National Space Administration by now, or that they will be in the near future. So, watch this space. Because that’s why there COULD be a top-secret base already on the moon.
