New reports claim that the US planned to 'blow up' the moon during the cold war in the 1950s.

The top-secret project was designed as a show of strength during the high stakes 'space race' waged between American and the USSR.

The 1959 plan, named 'A Study of Lunar Research Flights' and allegedly devised by US military chiefs, would have seen the US use an atomic bomb to flex some cosmic muscle.

A missile carrying the bomb - launched from a secret location on Earth - would have been directed at the moon and then detonated on impact, in a spectacular show of force.

The plan, which would have taken place in 1959, was abandoned amid fears a failed mission might endanger the lives of people on Earth.

The US government has never formally confirmed its involvement in the project.

That's like catching chlamydia to prove to your ex-girlfriend that you don't need her anymore.

They weren't going to 'blow up the moon'. Firstly that'd cause the extinction of all human life (and probably all life)on Earth. Secondly, you couldn't do it with a single bomb.

They wanted to launch a bomb onto the moon and explode it to show their space power.

Sure, it'd do some damage, but it wouldn't massively effect the moon.

Earth has been hit repeatedly (in the last 500 million years) by asteroids (about 50, give or take a dozen) with an equivalent yield of a minimum of 10 million megatons.

The largest ever Nuclear bomb was 50 megatons.

The moon could take a nuke and suck it up no problem.

Who needs tides anyway.

It's like the appendix. What does it do anyway?

The phrases “Once in a blue moon “ and “Looney’s “ alone and than all the Werewolf movies we would have missed on is a good enough reason not to blow up the moon.

The phrases “Once in a blue moon “ and “Looney’s “ alone and than all the Werewolf movies we would have missed on is a good enough reason not to blow up the moon.

If you don't believe that the full moon brings out weirdos then you've obviously never worked customer service/hospitality.

Crime increases with a full moon

Not to mention "Blue Moon", "Moon River" and "Fly me to the moon".

Yeah also Pink Floyd's The Dark side of the Moon and Ozzy's Bark at the Moon

A study from 1978-82 showed significant increases in the crime rate on full moon days.

Should we just sit here and list every agreeable pop-culture reference to the moon made since 1950?

Do you notice at your bar, or the bars you work in there tends to be a higher amount of dickheads out and about looking for trouble during full moons.

Ex-gf is a nurse and told me when she worked in emergency weird injuries would happen when it was full moon. And pits more if them - there was a clear pattern.