Nuking the Moon

It begins like a Bond film.

A dimly lit command room beneath the desert. Rows of blinking monitors. Men in black ties and darker intentions. A young scientist, brilliant but twitchy, is ushered into the room. On the screen: the Moon, hanging silent and distant in the void. The mission briefing is terse:

The Soviets have embarrassed us.
We must respond.
We’re going to blow up the Moon.

Cut to credits.

Only this wasn’t some Cold War fantasy cooked up in Hollywood. It was Project A119—an actual top-secret plan conceived by the United States Air Force in 1958. And yes, the goal was exactly what it sounds like: detonate a nuclear warhead on the surface of the Moon.

The idea wasn’t to destroy it. That would’ve required more firepower than even the military’s most deranged minds could dream up. No, the purpose was spectacle. The plan called for a one-to-two kiloton device—small by nuclear standards but powerful enough to create a flash visible from Earth. Ideally, the bomb would be detonated at the dark edge of the Moon during a new moon phase, creating a dramatic, otherworldly bloom of light against the blackness of space.

This wasn’t science. This was theater.

After Sputnik’s launch in 1957, the Soviets had seized the upper hand in the Space Race. America was reeling, its prestige bruised, its military brass on edge. The Soviet Union had not only put an object into orbit—it had done so while the United States was still fumbling with test flights. To the public, it felt like losing to a rival in full view of the world. And in Washington, that couldn’t stand.

So, instead of quietly catching up with real investment in science and engineering, someone proposed an alternate idea: What if we nuked the Moon?

Not to learn anything. Not to advance space exploration. Just to prove we could.

And they took it seriously.

The Air Force contracted the Armour Research Foundation in Illinois to study the feasibility. It was given the innocuous title “A Study of Lunar Research Flights,” and deep within the report’s dry language was the unsettling core: a plan to use a modified intercontinental ballistic missile to send a nuclear payload to the Moon. The team tasked with the calculations included a 25-year-old doctoral student named Carl Sagan.

Yes, that Carl Sagan.

Long before he became the soft-spoken philosopher of the cosmos, he was crunching equations on how lunar dust would behave during a thermonuclear detonation. His job was to model the explosion’s visibility from Earth. Because if you're going to commit interplanetary vandalism, you want to make sure people notice.

And that was the point. Visibility.

One of the project’s leaders reportedly stated the detonation would “boost the morale of the American people.” Not scientific discovery. Not military advantage. Morale. This was geopolitical pyrotechnics.

But as plans advanced, cracks began to form.

Scientists pointed out that the Moon’s lack of atmosphere would cause the explosion to behave differently. There would be no mushroom cloud, no shockwave—just a flash, a puff of dust, and radiation-laced debris scattered across the regolith. There was concern over contaminating future lunar missions. What if the fallout sabotaged humanity’s chances to study or even inhabit the Moon someday?

Then there were the public relations implications. Even in an era of frequent nuclear testing, the image of nuking the Moon might not play well. If something went wrong—say, the missile veered off course and fell back to Earth—it could trigger an actual catastrophe.

Eventually, as the space program matured and more rational minds took over, the plan was shelved. No public announcement. No press release. Project A119 simply vanished into the archives, and for decades, no one knew it had ever existed.

It wasn’t until the 1990s that documents came to light, confirming what had long been whispered: We almost nuked the Moon.

It sounds absurd now—like a relic of paranoid brinkmanship. And it was. But it’s also something else: a perfect parable for what happens when the desire to impress overtakes the discipline to think clearly.

And believe it or not, I see the same impulse nearly every week. It’s just dressed differently.

Because most people aren’t launching rockets to space—but they are launching something. Grand gestures. Expensive purchases. Lavish displays. All with the same core motivation: to be seen.

Buying a luxury car they can’t really afford. Installing a pool they’ll use twice a summer. Throwing a $100,000 wedding, even if it means taking on debt. Sending kids to out-of-budget colleges for bragging rights. Or purchasing a house not because it fits their life, but because it “looks the part.”

And nine times out of ten, these choices don’t come from a place of confidence. They come from insecurity. From a sense of falling behind, of needing to prove something.

Just like the U.S. in 1958, people often confuse visibility with progress.

But real progress—financially speaking—is usually invisible. It’s the emergency fund you quietly build. The mortgage you pay down without fanfare. The used car you drive that frees up savings. The college you choose based on fit, not prestige. It’s restraint. Patience. Intentionality.

There’s no parade for any of that. No national morale boost. But it works.

So the next time you feel the pull to do something dramatic with your money—something expensive, flashy, maybe even reckless—ask yourself: Is this for me? Or is this for them?

And if the honest answer is “them,” take a beat.

Because no matter how tempting it is to chase that moment of visibility, there’s no long-term win in nuking your own finances.

Even if it does light up the sky.