Project A119, whose team included young Carl Sagan, planned to detonate a nuclear bomb on what body? The proposed target was the Moon.
Project A119, also called A Study of Lunar Research Flights, was a secret United States Air Force study begun in 1958 during the Cold War space race. Its planners examined whether a nuclear explosion on the lunar surface could produce a flash or dust cloud visible from Earth, potentially demonstrating American technological power after the Soviet Union’s early space achievements.
A ten-member research team led by Leonard Reiffel included astronomer Gerard Kuiper and Kuiper’s doctoral student Carl Sagan. Sagan worked on mathematical projections of how an explosion’s dust cloud might expand in the Moon’s low-gravity, airless environment and how visible it could be from Earth.
The plan was never carried out. A lightweight W25 warhead was considered after a hydrogen bomb was rejected as too heavy, but officials ultimately favored lunar exploration and judged the risks unattractive. The project’s existence became public decades later, after research for a Sagan biography uncovered it.