Talk:Project A119

Context
It might be useful to revise the article at some point. Firstly the US was not the only country to consider this concept. The Soviet Union had something called Project E-4 which actually got to the mock-up stage before it was canceled.

Secondly the idea of having the first (unmanned) spacecraft to the moon leave an obvious sign of its arrival appears in early science fiction, the versions I have seen feature impact probes loaded with white paint or magnesium flash powder.Graham1973 (talk) 01:57, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Rumors of soviets bombing the moon began as early as 1957, as confirmed by this article (that also contains many details now related to Project A119, such as the explosion on the dark side). --viniciusmc 18:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The Gary Latham Proposal
The Post-Apollo 11 proposal to detonate a nuclear device on the moon looks to be a further area for research. For one thing, this is clearly the inspiration for Malzbergs, The Falling Astronauts which features an Apollo mission to carry out just this experiment.Graham1973 (talk) 08:12, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The proposal was pretty widely reported at the time (Google News is full of the stuff) but there's nothing really in the reports beyond what's mentioned here. Latham has a few books on lunar seismology though, which might provide something. GRAPPLE   X  17:40, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I found something, but it's in a very dubious source, Secrets of our spaceship Moon (Found on Google Books) by a certain Don Wilson mentions the Latham proposal and states that it was for a farside blast. The problem is I cannot look inside to get a proper cite or even to find the authors sources.Graham1973 (talk) 01:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Archive: Non-nuclear explosives in lunar science
A vacuum stable Chemical explosive filled the thumper mortar ammunition canisters used as part of the Apollo Lunar Active Seismic Experiments. These explosive experiments investigated the composition of the Lunar mantle during the Apollo Program, analogous to the exploration geophysics practice of mineral prospecting with chemical explosives in "deep seismic sounding" reflection seismology.

The scientific objectives of Project A119, which as Apollo scientist Gary Latham explained, would have been the detonating of a "smallish" nuclear device(1700+ tons of TNT) on the Moon in order to facilitate research into its geologic make-up. Were attempted to be found by using the comparatively, much lower yield, explosion created by the water prospecting (LCROSS)Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission, which launched in 2009 and released the "Centaur" kinetic energy impactor, an impactor with a mass of 2,305 kg (5,081 lb), and an impact velocity of about 9000 km/h, releasing the kinetic energy equivalent of detonating approximately 2 tons of TNT (8.86 GJ). Whether or not LCROSS would find water had been stated to be influential in whether or not the United States government pursues creating a Moon base. On November 13, 2009, NASA confirmed that water was detected after the Centaur impacted the crater. The LCROSS "Centaur" kinetic energy impactor was however underpowered and therefore only partially successful, having not produced the plume height that was predicted. Leaving the true composition of the lunar subsoil, as an unknown.

I've moved this section to the talk page. Section needs re-writing as I do not think it was first written in English. Also the description of A119 in the section contradicts the description in the article.Graham1973 (talk) 08:40, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * (1) If you feel unable to read this section, then by all means, take a stab at writing it yourself.
 * (2)What contradiction are you talking about? You mean, Gary Latham's explanation? He is correct, science was one of the objectives of the project. Indeed, if you read the primary sources, Sagan worked, in 1958, on the paper Possible Contribution of Lunar Nuclear Weapons Detonations to the Solution of Some Problems in Planetary Astronomy.


 * Boundarylayer (talk) 04:12, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request
A see also section to Aristarchus (crater) should be included, as a natural source of radioactive decay gas products on the moon already exists. Also, a see also to Giordano Bruno (crater), Transient lunar phenomenon and in the last section on explosions in lunar science, well some info on natural meteor impacts being visible from the earth wouldn't go amiss. like the earth visible ~ 15 tons of TNT energy impact last year, september 2013, linked below and the less energetic event in March 2013 ~ 5 tons of TNT. See more lunar craters. 86.46.175.111 (talk) 04:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/02/19/mnras.stu083.full
 * 2 videos & quote "This is the largest, brightest impact we have ever observed on the Moon," Professor Jose Madiedo, of the University of Huelva in south-western Spain" ->
 * March 2013 event http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/350370
 * Sept 11 2013 event http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/bright-explosion-on-the-moon-2/ & http://rt.com/news/biggest-meteor-impact-moon-549/
 * No doubt there will be plenty more!
 * All these events makes one wonder how - under a scenario that a nation secretly flew a nuclear warhead into the moon and didn't declare it, how would the rest of the world be able to tell for sure it was a deliberate event and not just a typical meteoroid impact? As far as I know, there'd be no double flash of light that we use on earth as the identifying characteristic of a nuclear explosion in our atmosphere, as there is practically zero atmosphere on the moon for the double flash mechanism to form.
 * So how would we discriminate from the two events? There's also no system of seismic stations(CTBTO) on the moon like we have on earth to detect underground nuclear detonations either.

Searching for source
I'm looking for a source from when the entry article was new to Wikipedia. The source discussed the unpresidented addition of a WP article that was supported only by primary sources. Thanks in advance. Johnvr4 (talk) 17:50, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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nuke-finding-128
we must find a nuke to drop on the US 82.7.134.74 (talk) 16:24, 5 January 2024 (UTC)