Aka Nuking the moon!! I recently re-ran into this project when discussing ads on the moon, which made me look this up further & re-discover this!
Turn out Carl Sagan was a graduate advisor at IIT Chicago, & that he indeed advised on this! Wild. I'd heard Sagan was asked to work on the "nuke the moon" project, but I hadn't known he's said yes! To be fair it was pretty early in his career. I'd heard the story & always pictured he was already semi-famous when the government asked him, & that it was like, you, Sagan, we know your name: help us nuke the moon.
Turn out Carl Sagan was a graduate advisor at IIT Chicago, & that he indeed advised on this! Wild. I'd heard Sagan was asked to work on the "nuke the moon" project, but I hadn't known he's said yes! To be fair it was pretty early in his career. I'd heard the story & always pictured he was already semi-famous when the government asked him, & that it was like, you, Sagan, we know your name: help us nuke the moon.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28587627