Why Did America Want to Nuke the Moon? | Project A119 | Unveiled

Why Did the U.S. Want to Nuke the Moon?

The moon plays an integral part in how life on Earth works. And the moon landings consistently rank as some of the most important and iconic moments in human history. Why, then, in the 1950s, did the US Air Force want to blow it all to bits?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; why did America want to nuke the moon?

The lunar surface. It’s an eerie place, but also majestic and awe-inspiring. These unique, alien vistas, these ultra-mysterious landscapes, have captured the imaginations of millions of people for decades. And they’ve led us all to ponder some of life’s biggest questions. How does the solar system work? Could we ever live on the moon? And are we alone in the universe? But our relationship with the moon might’ve been very different had one particular mission ever come to fruition. Today, we’re talking Project A119.

Strictly speaking, Project A119 could have only come across the desk at NASA in the very late 1950s, given that NASA itself wasn’t officially formed until 1958. It was predominantly planned and discussed by the Air Force, then, and also by the Armour Research Foundation (now known as the IIT Research Institute). Regardless of how late or early NASA may have known about it, though, this was one truly incredible plan, the impact of which really would have been… explosive.

Project A119 also went by the slightly less Hollywood title; “A Study of Lunar Research Flights”. And that’s what it was primarily proposed to be, a study. It was originally scheduled to take place in 1959, but was cancelled, and the details didn’t become public knowledge until the late 1990s. Until then, it was top secret. And, even today, the American government hasn’t officially acknowledged that it was involved. In simplest terms, the goal of Project A119 was to nuke the moon. To detonate a nuclear bomb on the surface of our closest natural satellite. And so, a small team was put together, with a number of notable members, including Gerard Kuiper (famed for the Kuiper Belt) and a young Carl Sagan.

Ever since World War Two, humankind has lived with the threat of nuclear weapons. The damage they can do, the power they can bring, and the apocalypse that they could inspire. So, when in the 1950s the space race took global attention away from Earth and into the sky, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the world’s superpowers wanted to take their bombs with them. That both America and the Soviet Union were asking; how can we use our WMDs to gain an advantage?

By the late 1950s, though, it was America that most needed to strike back. The USSR had already chalked up the world’s first major space milestone, by sending Sputnik 1 into orbit in 1957 - Earth’s first artificial satellite. The move was heralded as a major scientific and technological breakthrough, but it was also met with apprehension in Washington and by the American public. The Soviets were now clearly ahead, and if they could fly a machine through space, what else could they do? How much more advanced might their weapons be, for example? In the clamour to match their rivals, the US plan to blast the moon was hatched. It was hoped that, when the bomb went off, the explosion would be so vast and bright that it would be visible from Earth. That the residents of this planet would look to the sky, and gape in wonder at the might of America, reminded once again that they were the ones in charge.

But, beyond all the international diplomacy and displays of military clout, the planning of Project A119 did serve some scientific and practical purposes. It pushed those involved to think more deeply than ever about what would actually happen if we dropped our bombs not just on this planet, but also in space. On 1950s Earth, the threat of nuclear Armageddon was just about persuading everybody not to detonate these things. But, on the blank, lifeless canvas of the moon, we could push the big red button and watch from a distance.

Carl Sagan, for example, was reportedly, specifically tasked with calculating the size, shape and scope of the dust cloud from a moon bomb. This was high level, unprecedented science, with Sagan having to predict how the most devastating weapon we’d ever produced would react to the moon’s lack of atmosphere. But Sagan’s role was also key in determining just how successful this particular piece of US propaganda could be. Because a bigger cloud would be easier to see by more people from Earth, and would therefore be more effective.

Obviously, none of this ever actually happened… but what if it had? The near total lack of atmosphere on the moon certainly would’ve had an effect. For one, with barely any particles in the air to push back against the explosion, it would’ve just gone on and on. There’d be no mushroom cloud here, but rather a sprawling, merciless dome growing wider and wider until all of its energy is used up. And for anyone in even faintly close proximity, it would still be a dome of near-certain death.

Radiation is already a big problem on the surface of the moon. Or, at least, it’s a big problem for humans on the surface of the moon. Radiation from the sun and space beams down onto our lunar neighbour with precious little to filter, dilute or absorb it (because of the lack of atmosphere). But now, the same conditions would apply to our nuclear explosion. The radiation from it would be left to expel out and outwards. No barriers or resistance, just a lethal, scorching wave. But you could argue that because the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, and because it’s being bombarded with radiation all of the time, what difference would it make? To some degree, it wouldn’t make much of a difference at all.

The other major point of contrast between a nuke on Earth and a nuke on the moon… is the shockwave. On Earth, the shockwave is a wide-reaching blast of pressure that can (and does) bring down buildings and kill people, animals, plants, everything. On the moon, again because there isn’t an atmosphere, there isn’t a shockwave. There’s nothing for the bomb’s energy to move through, and nothing to generate pressure. And so, all that would be left after nuking the moon would be just another crater. Another dent in the lunar surface, not unlike the hundreds of other craters it has amassed over the years thanks to asteroid strikes.

For anyone watching from Earth, then, there would’ve been a brief, bright light at the moment of explosion… but, really, not a great deal would have been visible after that. A temporary dust cloud, yes, but it’s not as though the moon would’ve been noticeably damaged. Some rocks and debris from it would’ve blasted off into space, and some might’ve even reached Earth. But, from our safe and incredibly distant vantage point, all of that would’ve been impossible to trace. And, for the general public, despite all the dangers involved in launching and transporting nuclear weapons from here to there, Project A119 might’ve even been quite anticlimactic. Rather than the big show America had wanted, it could easily have been remembered as a blink-and-you-missed-it non-event.

Still, we should all be hugely relieved that, whatever its reasons for doing so, the US eventually decided to abandon its plans to nuke the moon. Project A119 was cancelled by the end of the 1950s. Instead, the newly formed NASA went full steam ahead to get people to the moon. Not bombs. And by the end of the next decade, they achieved it, and the Apollo 11 mission goes down in history as a watershed moment for human exploration. The moon landings may have looked very different, however, if say they had happened a generation later, at a time when space had already been militarized. It would’ve meant that the equivalents of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were instead tasked to inspect nuclear detonation sites rather than just collecting samples to bring back home. Had America bombed the moon before any of that (or had the Soviets for that matter - because the USSR had similar plans at the time, too) then the moon may have already been seen as a warzone before anyone actually got there. And that would’ve just been… sad.

As it happens, the emergence and eventual scrapping of Project A119 (and others like it) helped contribute to the creation of various space laws. The Outer Space Treaty still forms the basis of most off-Earth legal jargon. It was signed in 1967, and one of the key elements to it is that it bars parties from installing WMDs in space, including on the moon. So, we can all wipe our brows and sleep easy. Thankfully, we never did enter the nuclear age of the solar system. And let’s all hope that we never do in the future.