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Carl Sagan Was On US Team To Nuke the Moon
First time accepted submitter novakom writes "Apparently during the cold war, one fall-back position the U.S. was looking at to ensure mutual assured destruction was to put nukes on the moon. This would ensure that the U.S. could retaliate against even an effective first strike by the Russians. The first step, of course, would be to detonate a nuke on the moon. And yes, Carl Sagan was on the team (and apparently leaked the info!)"
In what world does putting nukes on the moon require first detonating them on the moon? It would seem like that might make things harder.
did this "Idle" story get into the "Science" section?
Idea was to nuke the moon as a show of ability, not put nukes on the moon to provide second strike capacity.
The things they'll sacrifice...
I know we all joke about politicians and bureaucrats, but to think there are really people that stupid in high places just scares the crap out of me.
banning weaponry in space and on other planets.
verification is, however, another matter.
but by George, we got us a treaty! where's the Nobels stored, folks, I want a dozen for my mother...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
An AC did not RTFA and made a post saying the exact opposite than what the article said.
More at 11!
...but also kind of badass at the same time.
Just a few weeks ago I had read an article stating that Sagan was against nuking the Moon, but I can't find the article now...
For the claim that Carl Sagan wanted to nuke the frickin' moon.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
This proves it. Billions and billions and billions times over.
Considering the cold war and the number of employees in the USA government, from hundreds of thousands of plans it's plain statistics that some would be insane. Isn't the important thing here that nobody actually put this plan into action?
That's stupid. They should put the nukes on the dark side and then detonate them all at once to crash the moon into Russia. That's so much more direct and efficient than launching the missiles themselves from the moon at Russia.
I'd nuke the moon, if for no other reason than just to see what happens.
I know what you're thinking, and the answer is 'indeed, I am a mad scientist - why do you ask?'
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
> [...........] And yes, Carl Sagan was on the team (and apparently leaked the info!)
That's in the wiki entry. Slow news during the holiday season?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If by "nuking" the moon, you mean completely obliterating it like some James Bond villain and screwing up our tides, don't be ridiculous. That isn't even within our capability.
They proposed detonating a nuclear device on the moon. So what? Aside from the needless complexity and expense, how is nuking a lifeless rock outside of Earth's atmosphere worse than than nuking the Bikini Atoll, or the desert in New Mexico?
That said, I don't understand what advantage they thought they would gain by having missile bases on the moon.
And here I thought Frank J. invented the idea: http://www.imao.us/index.php/a-realistic-plan-for-world-peaceakanuke-the-moon/
Apparently none of those jokers ever read Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. It's overkill to lob nukes from the Moon. Simply throw rocks.
My fear is that, literally, he who gets to the Moon and has a permanent base first will rule the world. I suspect it'll be the Chinese or Russians.
Seriously, if somebody took up residence there and put some boosters on a few boulders, there'd be absolutely nothing those Earthbound could do about it.
Microsoft leads to Bluescreen; Bluescreen leads to downtime; downtime leads to suffering.
I'll wait for the moondust to settle on this. But how's this any worse than Einstein writing or at least signing the letter that led to the actual detonation of three bombs, including the two original weapons of mass destruction? Sagan wasn't a nuclear scientist, so he couldn't have had a direct hand in the logistics of the operation, just as Einstein wasn't involved in the design of the first nukes.
I recall seeing this on Slashdot before:
http://slashdot.org/story/00/05/15/1238219/us-had-plan-to-nuke-the-moon
...they want their story back.
Table-ized A.I.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2000/may/14/spaceexploration.theobserver
Slashdot editors, kill yourselves.
The mother will be absolutely furious.
Table-ized A.I.
Nukes Moon You!
Apparently, the last two astronauts on the Moon went through an exchange like this: "Hey, can you help me up the ladder?", "Sure, no problem". Thus, the exchange demonstrated a system whereby those with need were met by those with ability. Sometime later an analyst at the Pentagon reviewed this. Since those were the only residents, their interactions fully characterized the political orientation of the Moon. The interaction was communist in nature, even if not explicitly Communist or otherwise stated as such. Thus, the Moon was 100% Communist and needed to be dealt with as such.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
A Realistic Plan for World Peace
a.k.a
Nuke the Moon
http://www.imao.us/docs/NukeTheMoon.htm
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Nuclear explosions? On the moon?
Were they hoping to blast it out of the earth's orbit and travel across space on it, meeting a new alien civilisation every week?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
would have been from orbit.
To the moon, Brezhnev!
as a parent. Congrats. And good job of standing up to the Therapeutic State.
from TFA:
"The military considerations were frightening.
The report said a nuclear detonation on the moon could yield information
"...concerning the capability of nuclear weapons for space warfare." "
Does this make sense to you? Exactly what practical information could it yield?
Explosions with that technology might not even be visible to earthlings,
nor be very destructive to the moon.
Perhaps the real reason for explosions on the moon was not written down.
I can't imagine any benefit; scientific, military or political; can you?
...omphaloskepsis often...
A lot of classified "stuff" never made it past the paper stage.
Many that do are unfeasible, Bat incendiaries, that burned up the test area, the nuclear powered airplane that
couldn't get off the ground as the shielding made it too heavy to fly.
The problem with nukes to the moon is the same as sending nuclear waste to the Sun, it might come back.
As for Sagan revealing "this secret" isn't odd at all, as anybody who's filled out a PSQ for a civilian nuclear security
clearance (Q type) would know. If you withhold anything and it's found out what else are you hiding, type thinking.
Which I'm sure he did fill out due to the nature of this paper. A requirement (updated PSQ) of a another job he was after within the "system", he would of listed it.
.
The moon has no atmosphere. Therefore, there can be no destructive blast wave from any explosion, let alone a nuclear explosion.
Maybe they were intending on some enhaced radiation weapon, aka neutron bomb, or maybe they were relying on the intense thermal effects. But any kind of blast effect from atmospheric overpresure as experienced on the earth would be impossible on the airless moon.
God damn you Sagan, no one wants to eat radioactive cheese. Leave the moon alone!
Apparently this whole situation started because a note from senior management was mistakenly written as shoot the moon instead of shoot for the moon.
If you can't get them out there in the first place how are you going to get them out AND back again?
The nuke was on Apolo 13 - that is why it never made it to the moon - aliens forced it to come back so that the Nuke madness would continue restricted to Earth.
In 1959, John Wyndham (the Day of the Triffids, the Chrysalids etc) wrote a set of linked short stories about a family participating in the colonisation of space. In one of these, the USA, Russia and the UK have nuclear armed moon bases.
An interesting case of art imitating life - even if the the life was top secret at the time!
Was Chairface Chippendale on the team, and if so, who the fuck cleared him?
Monstar L
But it has to be true its on the internet and they can't lie right
Learn the difference, historically ignorant submitter.
It is long past the time, when the rest of the world should have started to disarm the United States.
Looking at the past half century of lunatic foreign policy, support for various crazed dictators/regimes, and use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians, it is clearly time to begin a program of forceable disarmament. The United States needs to be subjected to UN weapons inspections, and if necessary stikes against targets in the United States, to ensure full and complete compliance.
This is the only regime, that has ever nuked civilians, and the only regime to ever extensively use chemical weapons against the entire population of a country.
All US military bases, in over 130 different nations, should be closed with immediate effect, and the various members of the ruling junta, should be brought to justice, in front on the International Criminal Court.
Because if it turned out to be feasible, then some other power might have done it first. We should study ALL options.
Sounds like the perfect story for as science fiction movie!
"During the hight of the cold war, the US created nuclear lauch capability on the moon as a doomsday weapon. In the event of a nuclear strike that had wiped out all of the US launch capability, the moon station would be used to ensure that the enemies of the US were also wiped out. Due the the communications delay between the Moon and the Earth it was decided to automate the station to detect the specific situation, and proceed with a retalitory response. Fast forward to current day, when the cold war over and nuclear dissarment, the now forgotten station has come online and transmitted to a dusty computer no one remembers what it was for (until they look it up terrified), the intention to lauch a full scale nuclear attack on a countdown. The recieving transmitter of course has failed, not allowing the cancel codes to be recived. In addition moon station defences have been activated to prevent possible Russian infiltrators from sabotaging the station. Now NASA must send a special crew on short notice to the moon to disable the station!"
Possible twists...
"Amageddon remake - A plucky group of interesting non-experts must make the journey rather than normal crew, however one of them is a secret plant with his own agenda for a faction within the government that think the "accidental" strike might be a good thing!"
"Space Cowboys remake - A group of old folks must make the journey rather than normal crew, as no one else remembers how the moon station was constructed, or what the defences are, no documentation has survived this long, and it only exists in the memory of these old pluky engineers" :)