The United States, the world's most powerful country, had ever planned to blow up the moon with a nuclear bomb. This may sound strange, but it is true. The project was named Project A119, which was a top-secret plan developed by the United States Air Force in 1958. The main purpose of Project A119 was to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon, which would help in answering some of the mysteries in planetary astronomy. However, this highly confidential mission was canceled primarily and never carried out. The Air Force believed that if this mission failed, its consequences would be very bad for the people of Earth. This project was also known as "A Study of Lunar Research Flights", which was prepared under a highly confidential mission. According to the plan, the gases present there, including dust and soil, were to be tested by exploding on the moon. This task was assigned to a young astronomer, Carl Sagan, who was part of the team responsible for predicting the effects of nuclear explosions in vacuum and low gravity and in evaluating the scientific value of the project. The existence of this American project was revealed in 2000 by Leonard Reiffel, a former NASA executive who led the project in 1958.
It was the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union took an early lead in the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, which was the inspiration for the beginning of the Space Race. The US was losing after the Soviets launched their first satellite. To avoid losing the space race, the US went into scramble mode and launched a satellite of its own, Explorer 1. Then it assembled a team of the best to figure out how to blow up the Moon. To implement this plan, the US supposed to send a missile from Earth to the moon, which would travel about 238,000 miles and detonate the nuclear bomb on the moon. For this, Scientists initially considered using a hydrogen bomb for the project but they had chosen the atom bomb instead of the hydrogen bomb because of the weight of the hydrogen bomb, as it would be too heavy to be propelled by the missile. But this mission of scientists was completely rejected by the US Air Force. According to them if this mission was not successful, it would affect the earth badly.
It was the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union took an early lead in the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, which was the inspiration for the beginning of the Space Race. The US was losing after the Soviets launched their first satellite. To avoid losing the space race, the US went into scramble mode and launched a satellite of its own, Explorer 1. Then it assembled a team of the best to figure out how to blow up the Moon. To implement this plan, the US supposed to send a missile from Earth to the moon, which would travel about 238,000 miles and detonate the nuclear bomb on the moon. For this, Scientists initially considered using a hydrogen bomb for the project but they had chosen the atom bomb instead of the hydrogen bomb because of the weight of the hydrogen bomb, as it would be too heavy to be propelled by the missile. But this mission of scientists was completely rejected by the US Air Force. According to them if this mission was not successful, it would affect the earth badly.
0 comments:
Post a Comment