<i>&quot;Reiffel was approached by senior US Air Force officers in 1958, who asked him to &#x27;fast-track&#x27; a project to investigate the visibility and effects of a nuclear explosion on the moon. &quot;</i><p>Was the US Air Force capable of launching a missle to the moon in the late &#x27;50s, early &#x27;60&#x27;s?<p>Lets say they chose the Atlas. Lets be generous and say the Atlas E was chosen (Lockheed , first launched in Feb 24, &#x27;61) [0] it was capable of an 820Kg payload into low orbit. The interesting bit, for the total life of this particular rocket there were  <i>&quot;9 successful launches, 7 partial successful launches and 2 failures.&quot;</i><p>Hardly a reasonable plan to get a bomb to the moon. Nothing really happened until Wernher von Braun was put in charge of the F1 and by then the target was a manned mission.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.designation-systems.net&#x2F;dusrm&#x2F;app3&#x2F;b-2.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.designation-systems.net&#x2F;dusrm&#x2F;app3&#x2F;b-2.html</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wernher_von_Braun#NASA_career" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wernher_von_Braun#NASA_career</a>