Bombing the moon: It was real!1!11!!!

[Silent3]

http://www.iflscience.com/space/the-us-had-an-insane-plan-to-drop-a-nuclear-bomb-on-the-moon-in-the-1950s/

Amidst the scientific progress, big egos, and general madness of the Cold War, the US wanted to drop a nuclear bomb on the Moon. The idea was sold as being in the interest of science, but really it was just a big middle finger to the USSR. As if this cautionary tale couldn't get any weirder, a young Carl Sagan was one of the bright sparks used to hatch the plan.

...

Their idea was to drop a small W25 nuclear warhead along... the Moon’s terminator (the division between the illuminated and shadowed parts). This means the mushroom cloud would be lit up by the Sun and could be seen from Earth and, in particular, viewable from Moscow. All of their research showed they did indeed have the technological clout to pull this off.

Of course, even a much bigger nuke wouldn't crack the moon in two, disrupt the tides on Earth, disturb women's menstrual cycles, or even nudge the moon's orbit to a measurable degree (well, maybe if you had really, really, really sensitive measurements) -- things that DU old-timers will remember were among the breathless concerns of some of their fellow DUers when we merely crashed a small space probe into the moon.

Disrespect the moon goddess? An attack by the patriarchy on the sacred feminine? Harm aliens living on the moon with whom certain humans had psychic communications?

I suppose those effects are more debatable.

[Jonny Appleseed]

1. We should've done it

I wanna crack the moon in two. I think it would look really cool.

[Orrex]

2. And let the dragons out? Are you mad?

[Initech]

3. Does this mean that Dr. X was real?

[longship]

4. Moon Base Alpha! Kick the moon out of the solar system!

It would be a great scifi plot device featuring Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, and Barry Morse!

A sappy memorial:

[krispos42]

5. But blowing up the moon would give Earth a set of rings

It would look totally awesome. Well worth the effort.

[longship]

6. This thread deserves a link to the greatest DU thread ever.

BOMBING THE MOON! (from 2009, well worth a click-through).

Cannot find link...

Let's check this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5861623&mesg_id=5861623

That's not it either. Maybe somebody else will post a link to the hilarious "Bomb the Moon" thread.

[JTFrog]

8. Here you go:

My kids once told me I seem to be able to find anything if it's on the internet. I guess they were right.

https://web.archive.org/web/20151006222842/http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6712126

[longship]

10. Thanks, JT!

My best to you!

[JTFrog]

12. No problem.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Wow, that's a blast from the past! (excuse the pun) Ha!

Geez, I was so tense back then. Youth, always so serious. Sigh.


I didn't have the patience to make it all the way to the part where it was admitted the upset had something to do with a secret plan to destroy the "star friends lunar colony" where the psychic aliens live .. I know it came out in one of the threads;

... but re-reading that thread convinces me more than ever of my long-running suspicion that "omega minimo" was just a garden variety library girl sock incarnation that somehow managed to rack up several years worth of posts before finally getting banned like the rest of her accounts.

[VMA131Marine]

7. There wouldn't be a mushroom cloud...

That results from the hot fireball rising due to it's positive bouyancy compared to the surrounding air. But the moon has no atmosphere, which means the fireball wouldn't rise; so no mushroom cloud.

[hunter]

9. A Soviet RDS-220 style bomb would have created it's own environment.

wikipedia

Think big...

[anglesphere]

11. How could someone think we were going to blow up the moon?

[Codeine]

14. Even among liberals there are some dumb motherfuckers out there. nt

[trof]

13. And there would be all that melted cheese.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. also involved was Gerard Kuiper, who now has a pretty big belt of real estate named after him.