Moon Shot

Remember Sputnik? or if you are too young to actually remember it it is probably included in history lessons as a crucial point in the space race, not to mention causing the NASA folks to panic because Russia was the first to orbit the planet with a manned flight. At that point the Air Force stepped up to the plate with a plan to put the US back on the top of the heap but fortunately that plan was never carried out. Their plan was to nuke the moon. They figured the explosion would be seen from Earth and leave everyone in awe,then part of the team (Carl Sagan) begin to worry about the possibility of radiation from the explosion making it back to Earth and the plan was eventually scrapped. A question that wasn't addressed with all their combined brilliance was what effect an explosion of that magnitude would have had on the tides of our planet which was one of my first thoughts,but hey? what do I know,I'm not a rocket scientist!