5 ms·

Fascinating. Kind of sad that this was ever _considered_.

• kbenson 8y ago
  Why? Of all the places to detonate a nuclear bomb in the name of science, the moon seems a pretty safe one with little consequence to any living thing. I don't really see it as all that different than drilling for a core sample, except in scale, but that scale still doesn't affect anything, so I'm not sure it matters.
  • HillaryBriss 8y ago
    Another factor, cited by project leader Leonard Reiffel, was the possible implications of the nuclear fallout for future lunar research projects and colonization.
  • mikeash 8y ago
    We blew up a bunch of Pacific islands and various other places with hundreds of explosions for no purpose other than to make sure we could more effectively kill people. Nuking the moon is positively benign by comparison.
  • mannykannot 8y ago
    It would have been scientific in name only. I don't think there is any open scientific question of any great consequence where people are saying "if we could only set off a nuke on the moon, we would know for sure." What sets my eyes rolling is the midcentury enthusiasm for setting off nukes wherever we could possibly put them. I bet there were people thinking about nukes under the antarctic ice cap, in a volcano, a major fault, a hurricane's eye...