NASA wanted to nuke the Moon in 1950s out of jealousy. Here's why it did not

NASA and several other space agencies are today vying to land humans again on the Moon. But, do you know there was a time when the Americans planned to nuke our lunar satellite? This might sound like science fiction, but it was a very real plot aimed at denting Soviet space agendas. According to documents, as part of the top-secret Project A119, the US wanted to bomb the Moon way before Neil Armstrong landed there. In the 1950s, the USSR was moving closer to landing its first astronauts on the Moon. For the US, that would have meant a huge loss. So, it thought of carving a huge crater on the Moon with the hydrogen bomb, way more powerful than the atomic bomb.

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NASA wanted to create a flash of light on the Moon

The US thought of the terrifying plan so that it could mark its territory on the Moon if Russian astronauts got too close to their goal. On October 4, 1957, the USSR launched the first-ever satellite into space, Sputnik 1. The US got jittery, so scientist Leonard Reiffel joined hands with the Air Force and made reports between May 1958 and January 1959 about the feasibility of plans to bomb the Moon. NASA wanted to detonate the hydrogen bomb right on the Moon’s Terminator Line, the border between the light and dark sides of the Moon, since this would create a flash of light visible to everyone on Earth.

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This action and achievement would prove to everyone, especially the Soviet Union, that the US had the technology that would put it in the pole position in wars, and no one should take them lightly. Thankfully, NASA did not go ahead with the plan to nuke the Moon because the Air Force was scared the action could impact Earth as well. "Project A119 was one of several ideas that were floated for an exciting response to Sputnik," Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and nuclear technology, told the BBC. According to him, one of the plans even included shooting down Sputnik-1.