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LONDON (AFP) - The United States drew up a secret plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the face of the moon as a display of military muscle at the height of the Cold War, Britain's Observer reported late Saturday.
Leonard Reiffel, the physicist who fronted the project, told the Sunday weekly in an interview that the scheme, hatched in the late 1950s, was as a public relations stunt. "It was clear the main aim of the proposed detonation was a PR exercise and a show of one-upmanship," he said. "The Air Force wanted a mushroom cloud so large it would be visible on earth. The US was lagging behind in the space race."
He said the blast would have been on the dark side of the moon, "and the theory was that if the bomb exploded on the edge of the moon, the mushroom cloud would be illuminated by the sun."
Reiffel said he did not think a nuclear explosion on the moon would have had a major environmental effect on Earth, although it would have ruined the face of the moon. "I made it clear at the time there would be a huge cost to science of destroying a pristine lunar environment," he went on, "but the US Air Force were mainly concerned about how the nuclear explosion would play on Earth."
Reiffel, now 73, would not tell the Observer how the bomb would have been detonated, only that it was "certainly technically feasible." At that time, he said, an intercontinental ballistic nuclear missile would have been capable of hitting a target on the moon with an accuracy of within two miles.
"Had the project been made public there would have been an outcry," the scientist acknowledged. But it was not. He said the scheme, known as Project A119, was entitled "A study of lunar research flights" and was based at the US military-backed Armour Research Foundation in Chicago - now renamed the Illinois Institute of Technology Research.
Reiffel produced eight reports between May 1958 and January 1959 on the feasibility of the plan. The documents were destroyed by the Foundation in 1987. "Thankfully the thinking changed," he said. "I am horrified that such a gesture to sway public opinion was ever considered." The bomb would have been at least as large as the one that destroyed Hiroshima to bring World War II to a close
LONDON (AFP) - The United States drew up a secret plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the face of the moon as a display of military muscle at the height of the Cold War, Britain's Observer reported late Saturday.
Leonard Reiffel, the physicist who fronted the project, told the Sunday weekly in an interview that the scheme, hatched in the late 1950s, was as a public relations stunt. "It was clear the main aim of the proposed detonation was a PR exercise and a show of one-upmanship," he said. "The Air Force wanted a mushroom cloud so large it would be visible on earth. The US was lagging behind in the space race."
He said the blast would have been on the dark side of the moon, "and the theory was that if the bomb exploded on the edge of the moon, the mushroom cloud would be illuminated by the sun."
Reiffel said he did not think a nuclear explosion on the moon would have had a major environmental effect on Earth, although it would have ruined the face of the moon. "I made it clear at the time there would be a huge cost to science of destroying a pristine lunar environment," he went on, "but the US Air Force were mainly concerned about how the nuclear explosion would play on Earth."
Reiffel, now 73, would not tell the Observer how the bomb would have been detonated, only that it was "certainly technically feasible." At that time, he said, an intercontinental ballistic nuclear missile would have been capable of hitting a target on the moon with an accuracy of within two miles.
"Had the project been made public there would have been an outcry," the scientist acknowledged. But it was not. He said the scheme, known as Project A119, was entitled "A study of lunar research flights" and was based at the US military-backed Armour Research Foundation in Chicago - now renamed the Illinois Institute of Technology Research.
Reiffel produced eight reports between May 1958 and January 1959 on the feasibility of the plan. The documents were destroyed by the Foundation in 1987. "Thankfully the thinking changed," he said. "I am horrified that such a gesture to sway public opinion was ever considered." The bomb would have been at least as large as the one that destroyed Hiroshima to bring World War II to a close.
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