Why did the USSR and the USA want to launch a nuclear strike on the Moon?

<p>In the late 1950s, amid the space race, scientists and politicians in the USA and the USSR almost simultaneously came up with the “bright” idea: to drop a nuclear or thermonuclear bomb on the Moon. But why was this necessary, and why did the countries not implement their projects? Let’s figure it out together.</p> <h1>USSR and Project E-3</h1> <p>In 1958, S.P. Korolev and M.V. Keldysh proposed a plan for lunar exploration, which included dropping a satellite on the Moon’s surface to raise a dust cloud that could be studied with Earth’s telescopes and spectrometers. However, calculations showed that even if the satellite was filled with explosives, the cloud would be impossible to observe from Earth. In this connection, Academician Ya.B. Zeldovich suggested placing a nuclear charge on the satellite, which would, first, prove to the world that Soviet technology could indeed reach the Moon and, second, conduct research on lunar soil.</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/@deep.space/why-did-the-ussr-and-the-usa-want-to-launch-a-nuclear-strike-on-the-moon-ae8ec447f92c"><strong>Read More</strong></a></p>