Don’t you mess with my mother the moon

There’s a couple of preposterous reports out today alleging that the United States considered blowing up the moon in order to freak out the Soviets during the Cold War. Apparently something called “A Study of Lunar Research Flights” seriously pondered a moon bombing, and scientists as notable as Carl Sagan were even involved in planning the lunar attack, which was to take place in 1959 — before cooler heads prevailed.

Yup. There was a scenario — not a plan but a scenario — that was being explored: A STUDY OF LUNAR RESEARCH FLIGHTS:

Nuclear detonations in the vicinity of the moon are considered in this report along with scientific information which might be obtained from such explosions. The military aspect is aided by investigation of space environment, detection of nuclear device testing, and capability of weapons in space. A study was conducted of various theories of the moon’s structure and origin, and a description of the probable nature of the lunar surface is given. The areas discussed in some detail are optical lunar studies, seismic observations, lunar surface and magnetic fields, plasma and magnetic field effects, and organic matter on the moon.

I’ve corrected a spelling error, but otherwise that’s the abstract, as found within the .mil domain. I haven’t seen the document itself, but the abstract speaks for itself.

And no, as far as I can tell, the scenario didn’t involve “blowing up” the moon, which would have been pretty difficult as the Forbes article indicates. Apparently, though, some part of the military-industrial machine explored, discussed, and finally rejected the idea of hitting the moon with a single nuke — enough to switch a light-bulb on, it was hoped, above the Soviet military-industrial head.

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And finally:

I’ve dragged this poem out of retirement, and hereby give you permission to reproduce it in toto, with or without the rest of this post — and indeed encourage you do to so. Tweet and RT the URL for this post, repost the poem, agree with me, disagree —

This latest revelation makes me feel it’s time for a conversation about convenience, commerce and science vs beauty, reverence and awe — about what the moon is worth to us.

It’s my birthday, do me a favor — spread the word: Don’t you mess with my mother the moon!

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