Where's the kaboom. There was supposed to be a moon-shattering kaboom.
Posted on 11/27/2012 11:51:54 AM PST by the scotsman
“Why the U.S. wanted to nuke the moon during the Cold War”
‘In the 1950s, with a young Carl Sagan lending a hand, America considered a novel way to outshine the Soviets’
By Peter Weber | November 26, 2012
http://theweek.com/article/index/236878/why-the-us-wanted-to-nuke-the-moon-during-the-cold-war
“blow up the moon” and “explode a nuclear bomb on the moon” are two different things.
I remember back in the fifties when grade ‘Z’ sci-fi was king there was a movie in which the bad guys were going to move the Moon closer to the Earth to create a stronger gravitational pull, and create havoc for some reason I cannot remember. I’m sure it was logical to somebody at the time.
I remember the scenes of the Moon ringed with a flash of light that appeared to be dust, each time they did whatever they did to goose the Moon towards the Earth.
Wondering if that stupid movie was based on this concept, or what?
Where's the kaboom. There was supposed to be a moon-shattering kaboom.
In the annals of military research and history, virtually every idea, idiotic or otherwise has been considered at one time or another. The imperial japanese researched dropping plague infested lice on chinese cities, but found that the lice didn’t survive the initial airburst well.
Then there is Cobalt Thorium G.
The intent of this nonsense can only be to disparage the United States in public, to destroy it's reputation for global political gain. And nonsense it is.
If a nuclear weapon could in fact be detonated on the Moon, the force would almost exclusively be directed into space. And with no atmosphere, I don't think the damage would be significant at all.
To cause damage, the explosion would have to take place deep inside the Moon. And the explosion would have to be absolutely massive.
It would be no simple single missile explode on impact effort.
If a massive enough bomb were to be detonated splitting up the moon, the parts would not be equal. There would be small parts and massive parts. Portions sped up by the blast could jettison into space. Portions slowed, could lose orbital inertia.
It could become a planetary killer of an event, our planet being the damaged party, subsequent to the moon's destruction.
I don't believe the U. S. ever had a plan drawn up for this purpose. It's irrational beyond belief.
Does this sound like Palestinian propaganda to anyone else. LMAO, stuff for the funny papers...
The proposal, never more than that, was to detonate an atomic bomb on the Moon. Deathstar technology is still a bit beyond our reach more than fifty years later.
Just plan ignorance, the very heart of our legacy media.
The kind of thinking leading up to blowing up the moon is similar to the irrational thinking that humans, and not the Sun, are changing Earth’s climate.
“...’Project A119,’ however was never carried out.”
LOL, no sh!t.
Flied lice!
1. The biggest nuke we could have detonated at the height of the Cold War might have added a barely visible crater to the moon IF we could have delivered it there.
2. Without any atmosphere, most blast shock effect would be missing and the heat and radiation would be wasted.
3. If some idiot DID succeed in damaging the moon, there's a very good chance that life on Earth would be irrevocably changed as well.
Any damn fool who would come up with an idea like this should have been fired and then barred from any further government work.
I think the blast wouldn’t have even been visible from earth with the naked eye. An 8” telescope can resolve something like 1.2km on the moon. And “resolve” means be abe to tell one thing from another.
Possibly a minor glint of the flash for a few seconds, maybe? Maybe a little atmospheric dust detected in telescopes? Certainly is was something that the Soviet public would have never known about. At best, some soviet scientist may have found out about it and reported it upwards.
But if they were hoping for some dramatic blast. No way.
Even then, what was the concept? Were they supposed to see us attack the moon, conclude we were nuts, and that they should stay far away from us?
That could have messed up a lot of classic song titles..
Moonlight Fall-Out O’er Miami
Pulverized Moon River
Blue Moon Go Booom!
Brian Williams, spokesman for the blame America first coalition, ran this story on last night’s Nightly News. The smug bastard never met a more stupid story.
What the hell happened to fact checking in the news room ?
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