Crazy American Military Bases… almost
Creative warfare?
5–2–2017
Project Iceworm
Mini-fun-fact to kick off: I was a bricc and thought Greenland was totally its own country. As a matter of fact, it is an autonomous country, but it is actually part of the Kingdom of Denmark (which also includes Denmark and the Faroe Islands; together aka the Danish Realm, lol). This historically meant that Greenland was under the Danish constitution, but in 2009 Greenland received “self rule,” which means Denmark now has effectively zero influence on Greenland’s internal affairs.
Okay, moving on. They year is 1995, and the Danish Foreign Policy Institute (DUPI) is digging into the history of nuclear weapons in Greenland. The investigation was ordered by the Danish government after some info about a 1968 US Air Force plane crash (plane was carrying 4 hydrogen bombs) in Greenland became declassified and raised some eyebrows. While looking into this, the Danes discovered something pretty wild…
The US had built a top secret military base under the ice sheets of northwest Greenland, loaded with mobile nuclear weapons in case the Soviet Union wanted to dance.
Yes, sounds like the US pulled a major okey doke on the Danish folk. The whole thing — called “Project Iceworm” — was possible because the Americans did all this construction under the guide of a cover-up project called “Camp Century,” launched in 1960. The “official purpose” of Camp Century was “to test various construction techniques under Arctic conditions, explore practical problems with a semi-mobile nuclear reactor, as well as supporting scientific experiments on the icecap.”
The real hopes for Project Icework were much bigger: the goal was to cover an underground area of 52,000 square miles (roughly 3x the size of Denmark, lol) with a network of mobile missiles. The idea was to dig more tunnels over the next 5 years to eventually create thousands of firing positions, with a healthy rotation of several hundred missiles going through these positions. The launch complex floors were to be 28 feet below the surface, with missile launchers even deeper.
This did not pan out quite as expected. Apparently, brilliant American scientists forgot that icecaps move. Despite their seeming immobility at first glance, the sheets of are constantly but slowly moving, leading to the deformity of underground walls and collapse of ceilings. Still, Camp Century was open from 1960–1966. Americans managed to build 21 trenches covered with arched roofs, in which they placed pre-made buildings. There were 1.9 miles total of underground tunnels, which contained a hospital, shop, theater, and church. The secret silo was home for 200 residents. Electricity was in fact supplied by the world’s first portable nuclear reactor, and water came from melting glaciers.
Luckily there was no nuclear war with the Russies. And really, not all of Camp Century was a ruse — it did generate some valuable scientific information, and some of the first ice cores were harvested there, still being used by climatologists today to study temperature records and atmospheric composition.
Project Horizon
In October 1957, the Soviets sent Sputnik — the world’s first artificial satellite — into Earth’s orbit. It wasn’t much bigger than a basketball, but it apparently inception-ed a crazy idea into some American minds: the Soviets were planning to militarize space. (Though Russia being what it is, I s’pose this ain’t too crazy.)
Naturally, the US replied with a plan to one-up their rivals. Launching basketballs or dogs into space wasn’t good enough. Instead, they planned to build a military base on the moon.
“I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon” — LBJ
It was called “Project Horizon.” The full justification from the Project proposal was this:
“The lunar outpost is required to develop and protect potential United States interests on the moon; to develop techniques in moon-based surveillance of the earth and space, in communications relay, and in operations on the surface of the moon; to serve as a base for exploration of the moon, for further exploration into space and for military operations on the moon if required; and to support scientific investigations on the moon”
The Project never made it past the feasibility-analysis stage in any official capacity, but they had some wild plans. Two nuclear reactors would be placed into pits, providing 1) shielding and 2) power for operations of the preliminary quarters while the permanent facilities were built.
Of course there were detailed plans, but the plans for weapons are the freakiest. Being in space obviously changes the calculus for weaponry, so the creators got creative. Realizing that aiming over long distances would be difficult in a restrictive space suit and without full use of hands, they decided that weapons that sprayed shrapnel or buckshot over a wide area would be more effective than single-bullet shooters. On Earth, weapons like this have a lethal range of ~200 feet. But thanks to physics (e.g. no atmospheric resistance and low gravity), fragments on the moon would theoretically be able to hit targets a mile away and with much greater force.
For the 2.5–10 mile range, they conceived a bazooka-like weapon firing small nuclear warheads. This was basically already in use on Earth (called the Davy Crockett gun), but it weighed 200 pounds and so had to be mounted on top of trucks/tripods. With the friendly lunar physics, this weight would drop to 33 pounds and could potentially be shouldered by astronauts themselves. Apparently, these warheads would release enough radiation to kill everyone within a 255-yard radius of the blast.
And to really get into the sci-fi, they also proposed an actual “death ray.” This would consist of a beam of neutron or gamma radiation fired from an electron accelerator. Horizon authors legitimately said “It would be wise to further investigate the ‘death ray’ since this weapon would not only be effective against personnel and surface vehicles but would also be effective against spaceflight vehicles for which we have provided no defense.” An alternative to the death day was the use of mirrors and lenses to focus sunlight onto invading cosmonauts, like kids with magnifying glasses vs. ants. But this seemed less cool to everyone, so they stuck with the death ray.
Moving on, the economics of Horizon are laughable in hindsight.
“Project Horizon’s authors estimated that building the base and keeping it supplied through the end of 1967, by which time it would have been in operation for one year, would require more than 229 rocket launches to the Moon. That’s roughly one trip to the Moon every week and a half for nearly three years. They estimated that the program would cost $6 billion, the equivalent of $50 billion today, plus another $25 million to develop the weapons that would be used to defend the base.”
However, proponents argued this was still <2% of the annual defense budget, so why not YOLO it? Rather do this preventatively than wait for the Soviets to set up their own shop. However, these estimates were very far off. The actual Apollo program made just 6 moon landings between 1969–1972, and this cost $209 billion in today-dollars. The 229 trips would have been absolutely ludicrous — RIP in peace*, taxpayers.
It was probably thanks to Eisenhower that this didn’t happen — the homie was not into fantasy-warfare and was cautious against reckless defense spending, at least when it came to moon bases and death rays. He did sign NASA into legislation in 1958, but he wasn’t thrilled with that whole idea either; it wasn’t until JFK that the lunar program took off (pun intended). [Contrary to popular belief, most of the American public was not into the idea of a race to moon vs. Russia — but JFK yolo’ed.]
So, could we make Project Horizon a reality today? Nope. Believe it or not, there is actually something called the “Outer Space Treaty”** signed by the US, Russia, and 60 other countries (in 1967; now includes 105+ countries) which forbids nations from claiming the moon, planets, or other celestial bodies as sovereign territory. It also prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons/WMDs into Earth’s orbit or into outer space + the establishment of military bases or weapons on celestial bodies. Prolly a good move.
*@eveyone who is not 5 guys: this is a dumb inside joke, I’m not a buffoon😏
**okay, that’s what it’s commonly known as, but it’s formally called the “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.” It is the basis of international space law.
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