Why Did The US Plan To Nuke The Moon?

Well, it was part of one of the strangest Cold War proposals ever made. In the late 1950s, the US Air Force developed something called Project A119—a plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon.
The idea wasn’t to destroy anything. It was to make a point. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, American leaders were desperate to prove they weren’t falling behind. The explosion would be visible from Earth and was meant to show off American power and technological dominance.
The plan included serious scientists, including a young Carl Sagan, who was tasked with calculating how the moon dust would behave in low gravity. The explosion was supposed to create a huge, glowing cloud that would light up the lunar surface.
But there were problems. Scientists worried about contaminating the moon, and some officials thought the public might react badly to nuking something as symbolic as the moon itself. So the plan was scrapped before it ever got off the ground.
Still, the fact that it was even considered shows just how far Cold War paranoia pushed military strategy—and how close we came to turning the moon into a propaganda weapon.

Видео Why Did The US Plan To Nuke The Moon? канала Frontline Shorts