Not strictly an Apollo conspracy but still interesting.

After the launch of of the Soviet probes Luna 1 & 2 an American reporter named, Lloyd Mallan claimed that neither probe had been launched and that the Soviet effort had been a hoax. This was despite JPL picking up signals from Luna 1 and Jodrell Bank picking up signals from Luna 2.

The Soviet space authorities decided to respond by sending a third probe, this one fitted with a nuclear warhead. The resulting flash would be seen from Earth and prove that this probe had reached the moon.

Fortunatly for world peace the Soviets decided that there was too much risk of the bomb landing on Earth.

Details can be found at:
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/E3/E3orig.htm

Hi Graham20001, welcome to the board. The link sounds like something from a cheap novel. I'm glad that they had the sense to not do it. A mistake could have caused WW III.

__________________
Old laser physicists never die, they just become incoherent.
These days, every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he knows what a photon is, but he is wrong. - Albert Einstein

Nasty rumor says the US Air Force considered a similar thing (they actually wanted to hit the Moon) just out of "scientific" curiousity and thought better of it for much the same reasons. Guess second thoughts saved us all from the Bomb.

In a paperback collection of short stories written in about 1959 titled Air Force by Frank Harvey, there was a story that droppng a nuke on the moon just to see the flash was the plot. This book also speculated we could have orbited a man by lofting an X-15 on an Atlas booster. (it wasn't a true orbit either, launch from the cape and land at Edwards) I never really looked into whether it was possible but let alone feasible, but it was just about the best story in the bunch, the rest being pretty mediocre.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Waarthog on 2002-10-23 14:24 ]</font>

Nasty rumor says the US Air Force considered a similar thing

See Project A119

U.S. planned one big nuclear blast for mankind
Antony Barnett, The Observer

Nuke The Moon!
Paolo Ulivi

Something that was just as crazy was Project Westford (or Westford Needles). Apparently, millions of copper wires are still in Earth orbit today!

I know of a few pre 1957 SF stories that mention similar ideas, using magnesium or phosphorus to produce the flash.

Thanks for the info Karamoon, it did set me to thinking, one what would the effects of a nuclear detonation at lunar distance be on the earth.

I know that high altitude tests produced an artificial Van Allen belt in the 50's and that later tests produced spectacular electro-magnetic effects, aurora & the like, but would a hypothetical lunar detonation have similar effects or would it just be a bright flash & some static?

Second, what would they name the crater?

Graham

possible crater names

Kaboom!
Iseeyou
Toldjaso
Takethat
Nannynannybooboo
Doh!

I know that high altitude tests produced an artificial Van Allen belt in the 50's and that later tests produced spectacular electro-magnetic effects, aurora & the like, but would a hypothetical lunar detonation have similar effects or would it just be a bright flash & some static?

I have no idea. Perhaps someone else is better placed to answer that.

Presumably some ejecta would exceed the escape velocity from the moon and head toward earth, some would go into lunar orbit and most would just plummet back to the surface. I'd expect the effects to be very transient - a burst of light and rf static and not much else. Without any significant magnetic field around the moon, and with the blast occurring at ground level, I doubt there'd be a "lunar Van Allen" belt created, just some widespread and relatively dilute ground level radiation of minimal concern to the alien civilization there. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Still, the whole thing was a stupid idea, perhaps born out of our naivete back then. Laser reflectors seem to be a much more benign way of announcing "We wuz here"

In the article that Karamoon linked to, they kept mentioning "mushroom cloud" on the surface of the moon. Mushroom clouds appear around explosions due to convection currents. Would there be enough gas produced to make a mushroom cloud on the moon? My own thinking is that to create one it would require an atmosphere.

Well I think it is possible to have a decent mushroom cloud form from material on the surface. When the object hits the moon, the surface material shoots upward and froms the mushroom cloud. I am pretty sure this is the case with the moon, but am not positive.

__________________
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
--Albert Einstein

Although there would be sufficient heat to vaporize lunar regolith and the bomb components, in a vacuum, the blast wouldn't create a pressure front sufficient to contain the blast materials and force them to rise in a column. Everything would fan out and rapidly drop - ergo no "cloud", mushroom or otherwise. There would be an ejecta dome formed over the explosion site, but without an atmosphere to support even the finest particles, most of the material would have impacted the moon's surface within a matter of seconds, following pure ballistic trajectories.
A mushroom cloud is formed by a column of superheated air and debris, confined by a pressure front, that rises until the temperature drops enough that the column can no longer be confined. The material then fans out and begins to drop, creating that mushroom shape. It just can't happen in a vacuum.

Oppenheimer

Teller

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Reagan?

Bart?