Project A119

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Cover of A Study of Lunar Research Flights - Vol. I.

In the project A119 , also known as A Study of Lunar Research Flights ( English for a study of lunar research flights ) a top secret plan was developed on behalf of the United States Air Force to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon . The aim was to use such a detonation to demonstrate that the United States was technically superior to the Soviet Union and the rest of the world in space during the Cold War . The knowledge of details of the project comes from former NASA employee Leonard Reiffel , who served as head of Project A119 in 1958. The astrophysicist Carl Sagan , who later became famous, was also involved in a team researching the theoretical effects of a nuclear explosion under low gravity.

Project A119 was never carried out, mainly because those responsible for a manned moon landing believed it had a much more positive impact on the American public. After Reiffel announced details of the project, the US government published the first volume of the project study A Study of Lunar Research Flights in the early 2000s after a request under the Freedom of Information Act , while the remaining volumes were destroyed. To date (November 2012) the government has not officially confirmed participation in the study.

Cold war background

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union succeeded in launching Sputnik 1 , the first satellite into space on October 4, 1957. Together with two failed test runs of the Vanguard project on the US side, this led to the so-called Sputnik shock and fueled the race into space . In order to catch up with the Soviet lead, the Americans started a series of new projects, which resulted in the launch of Explorer 1 and the founding of DARPA and NASA.

Press rumors about a Soviet program

At the end of 1957 there was a report in the American daily Pittsburgh Press that an anonymous source had revealed to the United States Secret Service that the Soviet Union was planning to detonate a hydrogen bomb on the moon to celebrate the October Revolution . This should take place on the dark side of the day-night boundary and become visible on November 7th. The Pittsburgh Press also reported that if the rocket missed the moon, it could crash back to earth, which was the reason for the abandonment of Soviet plans.

In 1999 Independent Online , owned by Independent News & Media , reported that a Soviet program did indeed exist, but differed from the scenario reported in 1957. It was launched in January 1958 as part of a series of proposals under the code name E . According to the report, plans were drawn up in project E-1 to reach the moon, while projects E-2 and E-3 had the aim of circling the moon by means of a probe and taking a series of photos of the surface there. The last project E-4 was supposed to develop a concept for a nuclear detonation on the surface of the moon for a show of force. Like the US project, the Soviet program had already been discontinued in the planning phase. The reason for this were security concerns. Those responsible feared that if the missile malfunctioned, it could fall back to earth with its warhead. According to Independent Online , another reason was that an explosion would only have been visible for a very short time because of the lack of lunar atmosphere. The Swedish aerospace engineer Sven Grahn , who relies on the Russian Alexander Borissowitsch Schelesnjakow , gives an additional reason that the Soviet Union had no effective means of informing the world public about the impending explosion and thus attracting the attention of astronomers to the moon judge. In contrast to the reports on the A119 project that began shortly afterwards, the subject of a Soviet program was not taken up by renowned international newspapers and news magazines. In October 2017, the historian Matthias Uhl was able to prove through finds in the Russian State Archives that such a plan actually existed in 1958, but that it was abandoned before any practical preparations had been made.

Project

Using Project A119, United States military officials, among other projects, wanted to demonstrate that they were superior in space. In May 1958, the Armor Research Foundation at the Illinois Institute of Technology began research into the effects of a nuclear explosion on the moon. The main subject of research monitored by the Air Force should be the intensity of a conventional or nuclear bomb explosion on the moon that would be necessary to see it from Earth. There was hope that such a visible show of force could raise the morale of the American people after the Sputnik shock.

In February 1957, Edward Teller , the so-called "father of the hydrogen bomb ", proposed the detonation of several bombs on and over the surface of the moon in order to analyze the effects of such explosions under low gravity.

research

Led by Leonard Reiffel, the Armor Research Foundation at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago assembled a team of ten to investigate the visibility of an explosion, scientific findings, and effects on the lunar surface. Among the members were the astronomer Gerard Kuiper and his then doctoral student Carl Sagan, who mathematically examined the expansion of a cloud of dust around the moon as a result of the explosion on the moon's surface. These calculations were essential for the degree of visibility from Earth.

The explosion should take place on the day-night boundary of the moon to ensure maximum visibility on earth.

Scientists recommended using a hydrogen bomb, but the Air Force declined. The reason she gave was that the intended rocket could not carry the enormous weight of the hydrogen bombs of the time. Therefore, in consultation with the Air Force, the scientists decided to use a small W25 nuclear warhead that had an explosive force of 1.7  kilotons . In comparison, the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had an explosive force of around 13-18 kilotons. The plan provided for the W25 warhead to be brought to the dark side of the moon by means of a rocket and to explode close to the day-night boundary when it hit the surface. The dust cloud created by the explosion would be illuminated by the sun and thus be visible from Earth. According Reiffel the progress of the Air Force had in the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles made possible such a mission from the year 1959th

cancellation

In January 1959, the Air Force finally stopped the project because there were doubts about the positive public effect of a nuclear explosion on the moon and they feared a danger to the civilian population if there were technical problems in carrying out the project. According to Reiffel, another factor was radioactive fallout , which posed a threat to future manned lunar missions and possible colonization.

Consequences and detection

Project A119 was made famous through research for a biography of Carl Sagan.

The signing of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, Space and Underwater in 1963 and the Outer Space Treaty in 1967 prevented the resumption of plans to cause a nuclear explosion on the moon. By then, however, both the USA and the Soviet Union had already detonated several nuclear weapons in the earth's atmosphere on a trial basis in operations such as Hardtack , Argus and Dominic .

In 1969, the United States saw a major achievement in its space race with the success of Apollo 11 . In December 1969, the scientist Gary Latham involved in the Apollo program requested the detonation of a miniature atomic bomb on the moon in order to obtain information about its geological composition. The project was discarded, however, because American astronomers planned to measure the natural background radiation of the moon at a later date.

Project A119's existence remained a secret until the mid-1990s when author Keay Davidson discovered it while doing research for his biography on Carl Sagan. Sagan's involvement in the project was evident in his application for a professorship at the University of California, Berkeley in 1959. In his application, Sagan disclosed details of the project, which Davidson assessed as a national security threat posed by Sagan. Sagan's indiscretion consisted in naming the titles of two thesis papers connected with Project A119: on the one hand, a paper from 1958 entitled Possible Contribution of Lunar Nuclear Weapons Detonations to the Solution of Some Problems in Planetary Astronomy , and on the other hand a thesis paper by 1959 with the name Radiological Contamination of the Moon by Nuclear Weapons Detonations . There were a total of eight such thesis papers, all of which were destroyed in 1987.

Davidson's research resulted in the 1999 biography Carl Sagan - A Life . Shortly after publication, Nature magazine featured a review highlighting Davidson's discovery. That book review led Leonard Reiffel to abandon his anonymity and write a letter to Nature confirming Sagan's involvement in the project and stating that his behavior had represented a breach of confidentiality about the content of the project. Reiffel took the opportunity to announce details of the research, which was later taken up by wide press circles. In addition to confirming the existence of Project A119, Reiffel announced his role in the planning and said he was appalled that such an act to influence public opinion had ever been considered.

As a result of Reiffel's publication, a request was made under the Freedom of Information Act to have the files on Project A119 released. In response, the US government issued a digital version of A Study of Lunar Research Flights - Volume I free. This mainly deals with the geological and atmospheric conditions of the earth's moon. Since Leonard Reiffel actually stated in an interview with the British newspaper The Observer in May 2000 that he had produced a total of eight volumes of the study and that these had all been destroyed by the Armor Research Foundation in 1987, Paolo Ulivi and David Michael Harland carried out research for her book Lunar Exploration: Human Pioneers and Robotic Surveyors after the whereabouts of the remaining volumes. They did so because the publication made it clear that, contrary to what Reiffel claimed, not all volumes had been destroyed. Although they were able to find the names of two other volumes, Possible Contribution of Lunar Nuclear Weapons Detonations to the Solution of Some Problems in Planetary Astronomy and Radiological Contamination of the Moon by Nuclear Weapons Detonations , all seven unpublished volumes, according to their information, have actually been destroyed although they could not find out any reason for this. British nuclear historian David Lowry commented on plans to cause nuclear detonations on the moon:

“It is obscene. To think that the first contact human beings would have had with another world would have been to explode a nuclear bomb. Had they gone ahead, we would never have had the romantic image of Neil Armstrong taking 'one giant step for mankind'. "

“It's obscene. Imagine that mankind's first contact with another world would have been the explosion of a nuclear bomb. If they had actually done that, we would never have had the romantic image of Neil Armstrong making 'a big step for humanity'. "

- David Lowry

See also

Web links

literature

  • Keay Davidson: Carl Sagan - A Life . Willey, 1999, ISBN 0-471-25286-7 .
  • Lillian Hoddeson, Paul W. Henriksen, Roger A. Meade, and Catherine L. Westfall: Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945 . Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-521-54117-4 .
  • Paolo Ulivi and David Michael Harland: Lunar Exploration: Human Pioneers and Robotic Surveyors . Springer, 2004, ISBN 978-1-85233-746-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Brian Todd, Dugald McConnell: US had plans to nuke the moon . cnn.com, November 28, 2012, accessed December 5, 2012.
  2. ^ 50th Anniversary of the Space Age. ( Memento from September 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). NASA website, accessed October 23, 2011.
  3. ↑ Joseph L. Myler: Lates Red Rumor: They'll Bomb Moon . In: Pittsburgh Press . November 1, 1957, accessed October 23, 2011.
  4. ↑ Russia wanted nuclear bomb on moon . In: Independent Online . July 9, 1999, accessed October 23, 2011.
  5. ↑ Aleksandr Zheleznyakov: The E-4 project - exploding a nuclear bomb on the moon . In: Sven Grahn . Retrieved December 1, 2011.
  6. ^ Report of the Tagesschau from October 10, 2017 , accessed on the day of publication, 6:29 pm
  7. ↑ a b c d e Antony Barnett: US planned one big nuclear blast for mankind . In: The Observer . May 14, 2000, accessed October 23, 2011.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Paolo Ulivi et al .: Lunar Exploration: Human Pioneers and Robotic Surveyors . 2004, pp. 19-21.
  9. ^ A b c William J. Broad: US Planned Nuclear Blast On the Moon, Physicist Says . In: The New York Times . May 16, 2000, accessed October 23, 2011.
  10. ↑ a b U.S. Wighed A-Blast on Moon in 1950s . In: Los Angeles Times . May 18, 2000, accessed October 23, 2011.
  11. ^ Lillian Hoddeson et al .: Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945 . 1993, pp. 392-393.
  12. ↑ a b U.S. consideres lunar a-bomb blast . In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . May 18, 2000, accessed October 23, 2011.
  13. ^ Moon madness . In: The Sydney Morning Herald . December 21, 1969. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  14. ^ Scientist Withdraws Plans for Nuclear Blast on Moon . In: St. Petersburg Times . January 7, 1970. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  15. ↑ Keay Davidson: Carl Sagan - A Life . 1999, p. 95.
  16. ^ Matthias Dörries: The Politics of Atmospheric Sciences: "Nuclear Winter" and Global Climate Change. In: Osiris. No. 26, 2011, pp. 198-223.
  17. ↑ Christopher Chyba: An exobiologist's life search . In: Nature . No. 401, October 28, 1999, accessed October 23, 2011.
  18. ↑ Leonard Reiffel: Sagan breached security by revealing US work on a lunar bomb project . In: Nature . No. 405, May 4, 2000, accessed October 23, 2011.
  19. ↑ Online version of A Study of Lunar Research Flights, Volume I . Defense Documentation Center for Scientific and Technical Information , accessed December 5, 2012 (PDF; 5.8 MB).
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 7, 2012 in this version .