Astronaut Soldier on the Moon

[imitator]

Also worth noting… they’ve been planning this kind of thing for decades.

Project Horizon (1959 – U.S. Army)  
Soldiers on the Moon?!? The Army’s Strange but True Plan for a Lunar Outpost

In 1959, the U.S. Army crafted Project Horizon, a feasibility study for a military lunar outpost staffed by approximately 12 soldier-astronauts by 1966. The outpost would serve surveillance, strategic deterrence, and scientific purposes... with concepts even including nuclear-defense systems and lunar weapons. The projected cost was about $6 billion at the time. 

Lunex Project (1958–1961 – U.S. Air Force)
Lunex Project

Parallel to the Army’s efforts, the USAF’s Lunex Project envisioned an underground Moon base for up to 21 airmen by 1968, with a budget of around $7.5 billion. This concept included crewed lunar landings and permanent habitation.

Other Cold War Concepts
The Air Force once proposed bombing Earth from the Moon

Some Air Force plans included a so-called “Lunar-Based Earth Bombardment System”... ideas like moon-based weapons capable of striking Earth targets. These were more speculative than realistic and were never developed.

[BeyondKnowledge]

Also worth noting… they’ve been planning this kind of thing for decades.

Project Horizon (1959 – U.S. Army)  
Soldiers on the Moon?!? The Army’s Strange but True Plan for a Lunar Outpost

In 1959, the U.S. Army crafted Project Horizon, a feasibility study for a military lunar outpost staffed by approximately 12 soldier-astronauts by 1966. The outpost would serve surveillance, strategic deterrence, and scientific purposes... with concepts even including nuclear-defense systems and lunar weapons. The projected cost was about $6 billion at the time. 

Lunex Project (1958–1961 – U.S. Air Force)
Lunex Project

Parallel to the Army’s efforts, the USAF’s Lunex Project envisioned an underground Moon base for up to 21 airmen by 1968, with a budget of around $7.5 billion. This concept included crewed lunar landings and permanent habitation.

Other Cold War Concepts
The Air Force once proposed bombing Earth from the Moon

Some Air Force plans included a so-called “Lunar-Based Earth Bombardment System”... ideas like moon-based weapons capable of striking Earth targets. These were more speculative than realistic and were never developed.

Also worth noting, all those programs are outdated through technological and practal reasons.

Earth orbit satellite servalience is much better than any Moon based observations could be. This is because you can see better when you are closer. 

Bombardment from the Moon is utterly impractical for the same reason. It is easier to attack from closer and with much less probability of interseption. If you have over a day to shoot down an incoming weapon, it becomes easier to do so.

Also those proposals do not take into consideration the abrasive nature of the Moon dust. Spacesuits are eaten by the sharp dust of all sizes from the fabric moving. The dust being very sharp from its creation by impact and no weathering to wear down the sharpness. Much like millions of tiny stone and glass knives working in the fabric once exposed to that dust. This would require many spacesuits for each individual to stay on the Moon for any extended stay. 

Now scientific exploration would be useful but why keep that secret?

[Nerb]

Also worth noting, all those programs are outdated through technological and practal reasons.

I'm sure they would also evolve alongside other programs to keep up with the tech and practicalities of the day.
 

Earth orbit satellite servalience is much better than any Moon based observations could be. This is because you can see better when you are closer.

But couldn't MORE be seen from a much larger observation platform on the Moon? Something ten times the size of the ISS would be hidden on a pinhead if it was on/in the Moon.
 

Now scientific exploration would be useful but why keep that secret?

Knowledge is Power. Knowledge of secrets is Secret Power.

[imitator]

Yes, the old plans had flaws... Project Horizon (1959) is a perfect example. Eisenhower may have handed the space program to NASA, but that doesn’t mean the military interest ever stopped. Just because something went dark doesn’t mean it went away.

Cold War concepts like lunar bombardment sound speculative... but speculative doesn’t mean impractical. That era gave us stealth bombers, ICBMs, and GPS, all once considered sci-fi.

Also: China openly plans a military-adjacent Moon base by 2030. So we’re not talking fantasy. That would be strategic positioning of power.

I would bet the strategic intent behind those original programs never died... and today’s tech makes what was once hard, completely doable. 

If they were serious in 1959 with typewriters and slide rules, why wouldn’t they be even more serious now? 

[Signal Witch]

With today’s tech and black-budget funding, it’s very possible to run a stealth lunar operation... Just file the launches as “classified satellites” or “research payloads” and no one blinks.

Look at how many SpaceX and ULA launches carrying classified payloads for the NRO or DOD with zero public details....

Cool idea but putting boots on the Moon without detection is a tall order. Hiding one classified satellite is easy. Hiding multiple heavy-lift launches, lunar burns, and a return vehicle... not so much. Could a small, unmanned platform be there already? Maybe. But a full stealth crewed op?  I'm skeptical...

[BeyondKnowledge]

The 1959 plans had no Lunar soil samples to go by. They had just deployed the first ICBMs. Spy satellites were a very new thing. Sending people was considered just because they had not figured out how to make all the needed automation work yet.

My father was in the Air Force back then. NASA was losing rockets shot at the Africa range. His mapping unit figured out the rockets were going exactly where aimed, Africa was not where they thought it was. 

We have progressed beyond what we knew then.

[imitator]

Space race 2.0 is in the works... 
Duffy publicly announces nuclear reactors for the Moon.

August 4–5, 2025: Multiple outlets... including Politico, ABC News, Space.com, Scientific American, and more—reported that Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy (also U.S. Transportation Secretary) issued a directive to fast-track development of a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor for the Moon by 2030.

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cev2dylxv74o

According to Politico, the acting head of Nasa referred to similar plans by China and Russia and said those two countries "could potentially declare a keep-out zone" on the Moon.

First we had... Army Secretary Dan Driscoll recently said, “We talked to an astronaut… who is on the Moon… who is a soldier.” 

And now recently, the U.S. publicly introduces nuclear reactors for the Moon... 

Put them together, and it’s starting to look like “keep-out zones” are already being established.

[Nerb]

Cool idea but putting boots on the Moon without detection is a tall order. Hiding one classified satellite is easy. Hiding multiple heavy-lift launches, lunar burns, and a return vehicle... not so much. Could a small, unmanned platform be there already? Maybe. But a full stealth crewed op?  I'm skeptical...

I'm not skeptical at all.

Half of that ball of dust is free to roam unnoticed.

Convenient eh?

"I'll see you on the dark side of the Moon".

[BeyondKnowledge]

I'm not skeptical at all.

Half of that ball of dust is free to roam unnoticed.

Convenient eh?

"I'll see you on the dark side of the Moon".

How exactly would you get there unseen and getting regular supplies of food and equipment? The Moon is being watched constantly. Someone would notice things going from Earth and disappearing when they went around the Moon. 

And if maned from the 1970s, there would be a noticable pile of used up, worn out, spacesuits filling a rather large crater just outside the base. 
Dealing with the Moon dust abrasiveness is the worst part of designing a new suit for long-term stays there.

[Blackfingers]

Cool idea but putting boots on the Moon without detection is a tall order. Hiding one classified satellite is easy. Hiding multiple heavy-lift launches, lunar burns, and a return vehicle... not so much. Could a small, unmanned platform be there already? Maybe. But a full stealth crewed op?  I'm skeptical...

Yep it takes 3 days to get to the Moon so any UFO or astronomer worth his salt could pick up a vehicle heading that way or back.
Moon is pretty well mapped and there are actually live feeds of a lot of things these days.

Live Feeds From Earth and Space