Detonating a thermonuclear weapon on the moon? It sounds like the devious scheme of a deranged comic-book villain and not a project initiated inside the United States government! But in 1958, as the Cold War space race was heating up, the U.S. Air Force set out to do just that! Code-named "Project A119," it was the U.S. attempt to reclaim the initiative from the Soviets who had just flung the beach-ball sized satellite "Sputnik" into orbit, thus proving to the world it had not lost the space race before it had even begun.

What could go wrong?

Show notes at https://thedigressionpodcast.com/52

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