Nuke the Moon: 5 Certifiably Insane Cold War Projects
The upcoming movie The Men Who Stare at Goats tells the story of a military operation that attempted to create Jedi warriors who could teleport through walls and kill goats by staring at them. It all sounds pretty far-fetched ... until you realize that it's based on a true story, and it's just one of many bizarre operations Cold War-era militaries pursued seriously.
See, the Cold War was never really about physical combat. It was more like telling stories around a campfire: Whoever had the scariest idea, wins. And killing goats with your eyes was just the tip of the pant-crappingly crazy iceberg.
#5.
Project A119
In the years before the first lunar landing, the United States was lagging behind a bit in the space race. The Soviets had both the first satellite and the first human being in space, while the United States had two thumbs and an asshole and that was about it. The U.S. realized that it would need something truly grand to one-up Captain Pinko and his Kosmonaut Armada, and that turned out to be the moon landing. But the lunar landing was the second draft of the plan; the first draft, as usual, was a bit nukier.
A whole lot nukier, actually.
Project A119 was a plan to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at the Terminator, which is what John Connor would have done if "teaching it how to love" didn't play out in T2. Wait, sorry--the "Terminator" in this case refers to the dividing line between the dark and light side of the moon.
A large explosion on the Terminator line would put the sun behind the mushroom cloud, making the explosion visible with the naked eye from Earth. Presumably this is because the scientists in question were using prison logic: If you don't want to end up somebody's man-wife, you gotta kill the first random guy you see and make everybody else think you're crazy.
"You wanna survive in space? You gotta nuke something on the first day or else become Saturn's bitch."
The entire project was classified, of course, so it was given a slightly more innocuous sounding name than Project Nuke-A-Moon. They decided to call it "A Study of Lunar Research Flights," which may have been going a bit too far; that's like calling a serial rapist a "Can-do Casanova."
Fortunately, the United States came down off their explosion high and realized that nuking an orbiting planetary body for no particular reason might cross the line between "illustrating our technical prowess" and "cartoonish supervillainy," so they scrapped the plan and sent Armstrong up to land on the bastard instead. Think about that for a second: Neil Armstrong is considered a valid replacement for a nuclear missile.
"The name's Armstrong, but friends call me A-Bomb."
#4.
Blue Peacock
The Americans didn't have the market cornered on psychotic R and D. On the other side of the Atlantic, the British had just put the finishing touches on their new nuclear bomb. Weighing in at seven tons, the Blue Peacock was a tactical nuclear device capable of a 10-kiloton explosion--just slightly less than that of Little Boy, the first nuke ever detonated.
So why the downgrade? Isn't the point of explosions to make them bigger and bigger until everybody forgets how small your penis is?
"Who's impotent now, car?!"
Well, the British needed a new and novel defense in case the Soviets came over the border of East Germany and so, instead of dropping the bomb from a plane, they decided to put the nukes in the ground. Nuclear landmines!
For safety's sake, each bomb came with a 10-second fuse, and while that's not long enough to disarm the bomb or get away to safety, it is probably long enough for the victim to repent a life's worth of regrets, chief amongst them being their tendency to frolic in German fields.
"The hiiills are alllliiiive with the sound o- AAUUGH OH GOD WHAT'S THAT LIGHT?! WHY HAVE MY HANDS FUSED TOGETHER!?"
The bombs did have one major flaw, however: Burying anything in the ground during the winter would make it susceptible to intense cold, which could possibly affect the electronics. So the folks back in research and development started brainstorming:
"We could wrap it in blankets!" said one brilliant scientist.
"How about fiberglass insulation?" offered another.
"Why not just install a heater?" asked one sane and competent man.
"I like chicken!" screamed a random passing retard, completely unrelated to the science division in any way.
Guess which one they went with?
The chickens. The idea was they would be given enough food and water to stay alive for about a week, and the then their body heat would (somehow) keep the bomb's electronics defrosted enough to function.
In the long run, the project was canceled because the top brass thought that it wasn't politically savvy to plant nukes in Allied territory, or at least that was the official story.
But we all know it was probably those pussies at PETA again, having some sort of "moral objection" to underground nuclear-armed chicken prisons.
#3.
Project Stargate
In order of plausibility, the term Stargate refers to:
A.) A TV series about what would happen if MacGyver fought space aliens.
B.) A military undertaking that used psychics as intelligence gatherers.
Over the course of 20 years, (and 20-million dollars) the U.S. Army employed no less than 22 full-time psychics. This all started when command heard rumors back in the 70s that the Soviets were using psychics for military intelligence and, rather than chalking it up to Vodka and Babel-fish quality translation, they decided to run with the idea as well.
The idea was to use said psychics for something called "remote viewing," which is the ability to telepathically see information about distant locations. Or, more accurately, it is the ability to lie about seeing information about distant locations while holding your hands to your temples and wearing a sequined shirt.
To test their psychics, the military placed them in a room all alone and gave them a set of coordinates; the psychics would tell the military what resided at those locations and then satellites would confirm or deny the predictions. One psychic viewer, Pat Price, said that he could clearly see a military base at his location, and that the base had a crane. Aaaand that was enough for the military!
Rather than assuming this "psychic" might have guessed that the military was interested in military-related places like military bases, and that they probably needed cranes to lift their heavy things, they gave Mr. Price the benefit of the doubt and subsequently used that precedent to justify appropriating government funds in order to pay for magic shows.
Pat's actual drawing of the crane, which he probably saw on his way into the same base where he took the test.
If a psychic was wrong (which--surprise!--happened a lot) the official policy was not to tell them, because it might lower their morale. Who knew the U.S. Military had an official policy about hurt feelings, and further that said policy was to avoid them at all costs?
But they did question at least one prediction: That crane at the Russian military base. They asked Pat why he didn't see a set of oil derricks as well, and Pat responded that the oil derricks were disassembled. The agents got a satellite to take some new, updated pictures of the base just to give Price the benefit of the doubt, and found that the derricks were indeed still there.
So he gave vague information that anybody could have guessed at, got the only verifiable answer wrong, and still kept his job for 20 years? Yeah, that sounds about right for a federal employee.
I just realized that the nuking the moon thing was stupid for another reason: you can't have a mushroom cloud without an atmosphere, so nuking the terminator to silouette the mushroom cloud against the sun wouldn't work.
ReplyOf course, if you nuked the terminator at night, the fireball from the nuke would be visible if you were looking at it when it went off, but it'd only last a second.
In case anyone wonders why you need air for a mushroom cloud:
Mushroom clouds are caused by the explosion blowing all the air outward, creating a vacuum. When the air rushes back into the vacuum, it pulls smoke, dust, and debris created by the explosion with it, but it's moving so fast it all collides in the center and is forced upwards, where it spreads out again, creating the mushroom shape.
Finally, a list where people (mostly non-Americans) are NOT bitching about how many Americans are on it.
ReplyNO!, bad superpower, bad!
ReplyThe moon has 1/6 Earth's gravity.
ReplyJust the other day I saw an episode of Dragon Ball where Piccolo blew up the moon to stop Gohan's ape rampage. "Cartoonish supervillainy" indeed!
ReplyI would watch the s**t out of a movie based on the Nuking the Moon idea.
ReplyAm I the only one who thinks they should have nuked the Moon?
ReplyYes, yes you are
For a second, I thought that guy in the banner of #3 was facepalming at how stupid Project Stargate was.
ReplyDont forget operation Free Ride. That's the one where American jets would drop airline tickets all over Cuba, and anybody who didn't like Castro could fly to Mexico.
ReplyThat and the assasination attempts on Castro look progressively more like they were thought up by Wily Coyote.
"Punching yourself in the face as an excuse to punch somebody else in the face was not a valid military strategy"
ReplyPresumably they chose chickens as heaters instead of something artificial because, when the chickens died after a week, the bombs would then hopefully defuse. I think they didn't want something that'd keep the bomb active a long time, because a nuclear landmine isn't something you want permanent.
ReplySo a heater with a timer or an "off" switch wasn't an option? Straight to chickens?
Of course!
WE CANNOT HAVE A MINE SHAFT GAP!
Replyi move for resurrecting the nuke-the-moon project. it could be a nice way to stop proliferation. it's not like you can make the moon any more unhabitable than it already is.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI'm pretty sure that bombarding something with nuclear radiation tends to make it less habitable.
@ Xervous
The moon is already subject to solar radiation. Lots of it. And other issues...
Here's an analogy: I can't afford a 50 million dollar house. Does increasing the cost to $50,000,010 make it more unaffordable? That last $10 really doesn't matter. Likewise, nuking the moon doesn't add enough radiation to really matter - especially if you consider that the moon is a pretty big place, and dropping a nuke or two or a hundred leaves the vast majority untouched (and still just as uninhabitable!)
How about we just not nuke things in space for no tangible reason?
I think weather, the ocean, the Earth's gravity, and ultimately Cthulhu would have a real problem with it though. You know, like if something unexpected happens. Like blowing up half the Moon or something.
the sinking of the lucitania was also a form of false flag event, in that our goverment sent it off to get sunk with people on board, as a reason to get into the world war. false flag is exactly that, punch yourself in the face, then beat up your little brother and tell your mom (the citizens) that they started it.
Reply Hide All See All 5 Repliesexcept for that part where we didn't get into world war 1 until 3 years after the event and the number of British civilians who died on it greatly outnumbered the Americans, and the final thing that pushed us into the war was the zimmerman telegraph, and all the Americans did were get their asses kicked when they arived since America had to hastily get a large army, and only fought in one major battle three weeks before the war ended, except for that part.
The Lusitania wasn't an American ship... So unless you are British it wasn't your government sending it anywhere.
So many things wrong here...
The Lusitania was indeed not an American ship, it just had a few American aboard, along with, possibly a shipment of ammunition being smuggled to Britain from the U.S. and a lot of British and other European civilian passengers. The American media just used it as a way to rally public support for joining the war, like the whole "WMD" thing except done by newpaper moguls instead of the government.
America did a lot more than fight one major battle. True, American troops were only the majority in a few battles, but they reinforced the lines everywhere. Much more importantly, joining the war allowed America to openly supply munitions in huge quantities. Before America joined, both sides were having a very hard time keeping troops supplied with ammunition (mainly artillery). Germany would have lost years earlier had one of their scientists not invented the process for creating nitrates that we use for fertilizer today (nitrates being what makes explosives explode rather than jJust burn). Artillery was the major weapon of WWI, and if either side ran too low on explosives, it was going to lose. America joining the war gave the Allies an unlimited supply of explosives, and a navy to escort the shipments better, tipping the balance very quickly. Had America stayed out, the war would have taken months or years longer to end.
and you seem to forget that the only real reason that the American government gave a s**t about the attack was because there was a Vanderbilt on the ship, and that the Vanderbilts themselves threatened to cut off the money they were giving the government if nothing was done about it
The reason the Americans suffered so many casualties in a short time is that Pershing refused to listen to the British and French commanders whod basically gave him a list of stuff you shouldnt do because we tried it and it doesnt work.
It's interesting that with "Northwoods" so openly the truth now anyone could still marginalize the "9/11 Truth" when simply "Follow the Money" pointed to the Bush admin.
ReplyOne point to support that theory is the fact Bush certainly was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, wouldn't be so surprising if he couldn't realize the best strategy isn't to "punch yourself in the face as an excuse to punch somebody else in the face"...
I have that ESP game in no. 3 (the pic of the crazy guy in dracula cape and little pendulum)
Replyisn't the moon 1/6 of earth's gravity not 1/4?
ReplyIs this the only thing that bothers you here?
Gravity is based on mass and distance from the center of mass, not size. The moon is about 1/4th the size of the Earth, but only about 1% as massive. The mass is much less than 1/6th Earth's, but since the moon has a smaller radius, you are closer to it's center of mass, so the force you feel at the surface is about 1/6th Earth's.
is anyone else reminded of Dr Strangelove?
ReplyNuclear land mines. That kill chickens. It's like they were trying to come up with something that would piss off every Greens demographic possible.
ReplyIt is the hallmark of a bad weapon design when it has to kill things in order to NOT function.
I think it would piss off EVERY demographic for a 500 mile radius.
Northwood never happened, but all we have to do is look to LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident to see the same strategy in use. On August 2, 1964 the USS Maddox engaged North Vietnamese ships. On August 4, the same thing happened, yet the second time "Despite the Navy’s claim that two attacking torpedo boats had been sunk, there was no wreckage, bodies of dead North Vietnamese sailors, or other physical evidence present at the scene of the alleged engagement". That same night LBJ made a speech demanding retaliation. He was essentially given a blank check by congress in the form the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and poured troops and money into Vietnam.
ReplyHell, if we're going to go through a stroll through history, why not bring up the sinking of the USS Maine? In that case, it was the media who stirred up the war, blaming the sinking of the battleship on the Spanish (and eventually led to the Spanish-American war). The most likely cause of the ship sinking was a fire in the engine, but that story wasn't "sexy" (as vapid news reporters would say today).