may 1, 1958 - Project A119 -Katie Q

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Project A119 was a top secret military plan created by the United States airforce in the late 1950s. This plan was driven by the steep competition in the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The project aimed to set off a nuclear bomb on the moon, this was one of the most audacious proposals during the cold war, and ethically made little to no sense. The main objective was to demonstrate how American technology was far more advanced than the soviets, which for the cost of this plan didn’t seem like a very good reason. The plan aimed to boost Americans' confidence after the Soviet Union had earlier success in the space race. In order to organize this project a team of American scientists and engineers worked around the clock studying how to execute the plan and looked into the possible outcomes/consequences of the explosion. The scientists worked together to calculate the size and type of bomb needed to make a safe and reasonable explosion. They also scouted for optimal locations to detonate the bomb. They decided it must be on the dark side of the moon to ensure the best visibility for the people in America. Scientist Carl Sagan calculated the size and result of the dust cloud from the explosion and had to look into the physics of the moon's surface and how the particles would be affected by the vacuum of space. Overall project A119 was simply too complicated and expensive to be carried out, and many factors contributed to its early demise. A major reason being the potential dangers of contaminating the moon with nuclear fallout. Another reason was that there was simply no scientific value to the experiment. The U.S decided the project was completely unnecessary after they began to make progress in their space program.

Works Cited
Piesing, Mark. “The Crazy Plan to Explode a Nuclear Bomb on the Moon.” BBC News, BBC, 8
May 2023, www.bbc.com/future/article/20230505-the-crazy-plan-to-explode-a-nuclear-bomb-on-the-moon.

“PROJECT A119 COLD WAR STUDY NEVER ENACTED.” Association of Air Force
Missileers - Project A119 Cold War Study Never Enacted, 2024, www.afmissileers.org/In-the-News/13429633.

Barnett, Antony. “US Planned One Big Nuclear Blast for Mankind.” The Guardian, Guardian
News and Media, 14 May 2000, www.theguardian.com/science/2000/may/14/spaceexploration.theobserver.

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