The space race was basically due to the Cold War between the USSR and USA. Putting a rocket on the Moon, meant that it could reach the USSR and beyond if they wanted to.<p>Nuking the Moon meant that they could put a nuke to reach Russia and beyond.<p>Remember rocket science is the same if you are putting people on the Moon or just using missiles with nuclear payloads to hit an enemy nation.<p>It was a show of superior technology, and if they nuked the Moon it would have been one more step for longer range nuclear missiles.<p>Be glad that the cold war was fought in space via the space race instead of sending missiles to different places in the world or even to the Moon. Technology from the space race really innovated things and brought about the microchip and personal computers.