Crazy Space: Moon Nuclear Bombardment Projects

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the midst of the Cold War, when people were just starting to launch their first spacecraft, the two superpowers - the USA and the USSR - had one truly crazy idea. We are talking about the detonation of a nuclear charge on the lunar surface. But what was it for?

The USSR, judging by the available evidence, wanted to prove to everyone that the country was able to reach the lunar surface, along the way showing its superiority in creating nuclear weapons delivery systems (NW). But the USA wanted to arrange an explosion on the Moon more to show their scientific and technical superiority over the USSR in the Cold War, as if saying: "If we were able to detonate a bomb on the Moon, what prevents us from dropping it on your cities ?!" Countries also wanted to use the explosion to conduct some scientific experiments and promote patriotism among their populations.

For a long time, the public did not know about these plans, but they were still declassified. Now we, ordinary people, can familiarize ourselves with them. This article will focus on the American project A119 and the Soviet E3 (often referred to as the E4 project).

Prerequisites for the emergence of projects

At the beginning of the twentieth century, physicists, studying the phenomenon of the decay of atomic nuclei, understood all the prospects that new knowledge bring people. But knowledge, as a tool, cannot be good or bad in the first place. And when some thought about new energy sources that would give humanity new opportunities, others thought about war … The first nuclear program appeared in the Third Reich, but the brown plague, fortunately, could not get nuclear weapons for a number of reasons. The first atomic bomb could be created in the United States, America also became the only country that used nuclear weapons.

But after the end of World War II, a new war began - the Cold War. Former allies became adversaries, and the arms race began. The Soviet Union understood the full danger of the then US monopoly on nuclear weapons, which forced the country to work tirelessly on its bomb, and in 1949 it was created and tested.

After the creation of nuclear weapons in both countries, military specialists were faced with the question not only of improving the weapons themselves, but also of developing means of delivering them to the territory of a potential enemy. At first, the main stake was placed on aircraft, because artillery systems had serious limitations in their use. As in the USA, so in the USSR, bombers were created that could deliver nuclear weapons over long distances. Rocket technology was also actively developing, because missiles were much faster than aircraft, and it was much more difficult to shoot them down.

The superpowers did not spare money both on the creation of systems for the delivery of nuclear weapons and on systems for their interception, and the explosions were regularly carried out in a variety of conditions. It was also important to show the enemy the very possibility of delivering a nuclear strike against him.

And at the end of the 50s, a new race broke out. Space. After the launch of the first artificial earth satellites, the specialists faced several goals. One of them is reaching the lunar surface.

On the basis of these races, projects of nuclear bombardment of the Moon appeared. In the USSR, it was the E3 project (it is often referred to as the E4 project), and in the USA - the A119.

It is worth saying that tests of nuclear weapons in outer space (a cosmic nuclear explosion is an explosion with an altitude of more than 80 km; different sources may have other meanings) were carried out until 1963, when an agreement was signed in Moscow banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere., outer space and under water (Moscow Treaty). But people did not arrange nuclear explosions on the surface of other celestial bodies.

Project A119

In America, the idea of detonating an atomic bomb on the moon was pushed by Edward Teller, the "father" of the American thermonuclear (two-phase, "hydrogen") bomb. This idea was proposed by him in February 1957, and it appeared, interestingly, even before the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite.

The US Air Force decided to work out Teller's idea. Then the A119 project, or "Study of research lunar flights", was launched (it is probably difficult to come up with an even more peaceful name). A theoretical study of the effects of the explosion began at the Armor Research Foundation (ARF) in May 1958. This organization, which existed on the basis of the Illinois Institute of Technology, was engaged in research on the effects of nuclear explosions on the environment.

To study the consequences of the explosion on the moon, a team of 10 people was assembled. It was headed by Leonard Reiffel. But such famous scientists as Gerard Kuiper and Carl Sagan attract more attention.

After the appropriate calculations, it was proposed to send a thermonuclear charge to the terminator line (in astronomy, the terminator is the line separating the illuminated side of the celestial body from the unlit side) of the Moon. This would greatly increase the visibility of the explosion for earthlings. After the collision with the lunar surface of the charge, as well as its subsequent explosion, light energy would be released. To observers from Earth, this would look like a short burst. Another would be a huge dust cloud that would be illuminated by sunlight. This cloud would be visible, as the team members believed, even to the naked eye.

The team proposed using a thermonuclear charge that would be placed on a special spacecraft (SC). This device was supposed to simply collide with the surface of the Moon on the terminator line. But in those days there were neither powerful enough launch vehicles, nor sufficiently light two-phase charges. Because of this, the US Air Force refused to use a thermonuclear charge, proposing to use a W25 bomb specially modified for the project. It was a small and lightweight nuclear warhead designed by Los Alamos Laboratories commissioned by Douglas Aircraft for installation on AIR-2 Genie unguided air-to-air missiles. They planned to destroy enemy bombers right in the air. The W25 was manufactured by General Mills, which produced 3,150 of these warheads. The design had a combined (uranium and plutonium) nuclear charge; for the first time in the United States, the sealed pit technology was used (when the main elements are placed in a special sealed metal case, which protects nuclear materials from degradation under the influence of the environment). The alternative, as indicated, was small and light. Maximum diameter W25 - 44 cm, length - 68 cm. Weight - 100 kg. But the power was also small because of this. W25 belonged to low-power nuclear charges (≈1.5 kt, which is weaker than the Malysh bomb (≈15 kt) dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and 10 times more). The power allocated for the W25 project was significantly less than the originally requested two-phase charge, but there was no other choice, except to wait for the appearance of new launch vehicles and lighter (but powerful) charges. As well as new powerful missiles and new nuclear weapons will appear in the United States in a few years. However, in this case, they are no longer needed: in January 1959, the A119 project was closed without explanation.

An interesting story is the disclosure of information about the A119 project. The existence of the plans was accidentally discovered by the writer Kay Davidson, while working on the biography of Carl Sagan. Sagan apparently revealed the title of two A119 documents when he applied for an academic scholarship in 1959 from the Miller Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. It was a leak of classified information, but Sagan, apparently, "did not fly" for it. Why? Hard to say. The relevant services, perhaps, simply did not find out about this … But Carl Sagan continued his scientific career, becoming a famous scientist and popularizer of science.

Carl Sagan indicated the following documents in the statement: