US Military Once Planned on Building Surveillance System on the Moon

[Judi Lynn]

Source: ABC News

US Military Once Planned on Building Surveillance System on the Moon

Jul 20, 2014, 3:10 PM ET

By GEETIKA RUDRA via World News

The United States military once planned to build a surveillance station on the moon.

Code named "Project Horizon," a declassified report released today on the 45th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk outlines the military's detailed plans to install a moon-to-Earth surveillance system that would have been used for "facilitating communications with and observation of the earth." The report that was originally published in 1959 exceeds 100 pages.

Project Horizon also included a proposal to build a moon-based weapons system that would have allowed the military to launch offensives from the moon towards Earth and even into outer space.

The declassified documents also reveal that the military attempted to investigate the effects of detonating a nuclear weapon on and in the vicinity of the moon.

Although no such detonation occurred, the report tries to speculate the effects nuclear radiation would have had on alien lifeforms.
Another declassified report entitled "The Kidnapping of the Lunik" details how American operatives stole and later returned a Soviet space capsule called the Lunik during a Soviet exhibition tour in order to gather intelligence on Soviet space capability.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/us-military-planned-building-surveillance-system-moon/story?id=24639939

[cheapdate]

1. Of course they did.

Military supremacy is frequently a matter of gaining the high ground. The moon is the ultimate high ground.

[MisterP]

2. plus Davy Crockett warheads and Claymores redesigned to puncture pressure suits! what fun!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Horizon

[newfie11]

3. Awkward we have to ride the Russian space shuttle to the space station

We would need to build a spaceship to the moon.

[shraby]

4. My understanding was that there was an international treaty signed

at that time to NOT use space for military advantage.

[lastlib]

11. 1967 International Treaty on Outer Space....

http://history.nasa.gov/1967treaty.html

prohibits any military use of outer space, the moon and planets. It bans weapons of mass destruction in space, as well as any non-peaceful activities.

[shraby]

13. Thanks, I knew there was. Didn't know what they called it though.

[awoke_in_2003]

5. Only the SHADO knows

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_series

[billhicks76]

6. Dark Side Of The Moon

Some astronauts claim that on the dark side, which never faces earth I believe because our moon doesn't rotate like other moons, they found gigantic pyramidal, spherical and rectangular structures but were forced to keep quiet.

[heaven05]

7. oh really???!!!

gosh, I'm surprised. Not. Human beings, the top of the food chain. Nothing but destruction, death, murder, hate, wars of all kind in the name of, well you name it, people are killed for it. This is what the human being has wrought. No we're not getting better(evolving) by any stretch of the imagination. Detonate a nuke on the moon. geez.

[LibDemAlways]

8. Can only imagine the huge waste of taxpayer

dollars that boondoggle would have been. Billions would have been spent before cooler heads prevailed and deep-sixed the whole stupid idea.

I have relatives who worked in aerospace all their lives and never saw a project through to completion because of cost overruns, fraud, waste, abuse, and cancellations.

[NickB79]

9. A lunar weapons platform would suck for the most part

The transit time for a missile to transit from the Moon to Earth would be measured in hours, if not days, vs. the 45 min. or so for an ICBM to hit a target in the former USSR.

About the only thing such a base would have going for it would be that it would be out of range of enemy weapons, making it more of a deterrent threat than a real threat. IE, even if the Soviets launched a sneak attack and wiped out most of our land-based ICBM silos and air force, they'd still be at risk from lunar-based counterstrikes. But ICBM-equipped submarines basically do the same thing, and can get the missiles on-target in minutes.

[truthisfreedom]

10. Secret plan to go to the sun revealed!

1959 report shows top secret plan to avoid being burned... we were going to go at night.

[blkmusclmachine]

12. Also from that time period: Operation NORTHWOODS

U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662&page=1






Imagine what a George W. Bush in the White House would have done at that time.