US considered detonating nuke on the moon Discussion included
nuclear launch sites You could easily skip by it in an archive
search: a project titled "A Study of Lunar Research Flights."
Its nickname is even more low-brow: "Project A-119." But the
reality was much more explosive. It was a top-secret plan,
developed by the U.S. Air Force, to look at the possibility of
detonating a nuclear device on the moon. It was hatched in 1958
-- a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were
locked in a nuclear arms race that would last decades and drive
the two superpowers to the verge of nuclear war. The Soviets had
also just launched Sputnik 1, the world's first satellite. The
U.S. was falling behind in the space race, and needed a big
splash. "People were worried very much by (first human in space
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri) Gagarin and Sputnik and the very great
accomplishments of the Soviet Union in those days, and in
comparison, the United States was feared to be looking puny. So
this was a concept to sort of r