new Delhi. It has been years since the Cold War, but things related to it keep coming up through different means. The relationship between the US and the Soviet Union was very bad at that time. Both countries were competing to prove themselves better than the other and both were not averse to taking any step. A similar shocking claim to the Cold War era is made in a recently published book.
According to the book, the US wanted to have a nuclear explosion on the moon in 1959 to show an edge over the Soviet Union and to prove its dominance. Also, the US government had plans to start a military base at the moon.
Claim in ‘Secrets from the Black Vault’: This is claimed by the book ‘Secrets from the Black Vault’, published in April this year. It is written by John Greenwald Jr. Since the age of 15, he has been interested in US government intelligence reports. He said that the nuclear explosion on the lunar surface was definitely the most foolish thing that the government wanted to do. According to DailyMail, John has so far tried to make about 3000 intelligence information free. He explained that The Black Vault collects various events online. It has over 2 crore pages.
New idea to defeat the Soviet Union: In 1959, the US Army Head of Research and Development Lt. Arthur G. Trudeau demanded that if the US had to defeat the Soviet Union, it would have to build a permanent base on the moon. This will give America a reputation and it will also bring psychological benefits to the country. The report estimated that it would cost about $ 6 billion to keep 12 people at the outpost and keep it functioning throughout the year. Today, it is worth more than $ 53 billion.
Project A-119 was code name, if nuclear explosion would have appeared on Earth: this intelligence mission was named Project A-119. It was launched by the US in the Airforce division at Mexico’s Kirtland Airforce Base to advance in the space race. A report published in 1959 titled ‘A Study of Lunar Research Flights’ states that the US planned to detonate a nuclear bomb in the middle of the moon’s terminator, the part of the surface illuminated by sunlight and the darkest part was. Also, the explosion had to be done in such a way that it can be seen with the naked eye from the earth. For this, the army’s plan was to add sodium to it, which made it look brighter at the time of the explosion.
There was also a plan to establish a colony on the moon: John writes that the US Air Force wanted to use the moon to dominate the Soviet Union and the entire world. The plan first appeared in a biography of astronomer Carl Sagan in 1999. Sagan himself spoke about it at the prestigious Miller Institute in Berkeley. Along with him, physicist Dr. Leonard Riffel was also contacted by the Air Force officials. According to DailyMail, Rieffel reported that the bomb was to be at least as large as the atomic bomb used in Hiroshima. Also, John wrote that in 1959, the US also had plans to build a military base on the moon, which was named Code Horizon. The aim was to build a permanent colony by 1966 to house 10–12 people.
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