As promised, Nuke Bases on the Moon
Project Horizon was an Army proposal from 1959, a year and a half after the first Sputnik launch and ten years before the first actual Moon landing.
9 JUNE 1959
PROJECT HORIZON REPORT
A U. S. ARMY STUDY FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF
A LUNAR OUTPOST
(TRANSMITTAL LETTER)SECRET
CRD/1 (S) Proposal to Establish a Lunar Outpost ( C )
Chief of Ordnance CRD 20 Mar 1959
1. (U) Reference letter to Chief of Ordnance from Chief of Research and Development, subject as above.
…………………
The employment of moon-based weapons systems against earth or space targets may prove to be feasible and desirable. Moon-based military power will be a strong deterrent to war because of the extreme difficulty, from the enemy point of view, of eliminating our ability to retaliate. Any military operations on the moon will be difficult to counter by the enemy because of the difficulty of his reaching the moon, if our forces arc already present and have means of countering a landing or of neutralising any hostile forces that have landed. The situation is reversed if hostile forces are permitted to arrive first. They can militarily counter our landings and attempt to deny us politically the use of their property.
Horizon Basic Outpost, 1959 proposal
A couple of years later, the Air Force came up with their own Moon base proposal:
Project Lunex
SECTION II - PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
2.0 BACKGROUND
Shortly after the first Sputnik was launched in October 1957, Headquarters, ARDC initiated a series of studies to examine the military potential of space operations. These studies were accomplished by Industry-Air Force teams each working independently. Two of these studies which were the forerunners of this Lunex plan were “Lunar Observatory” and “Strategic Lunar System.” The objective of the first study was to examine an economical, sound and logical approach for establishing a manned intelligence observatory on the moon, and the second study examined the military potential of lunar operations. These studies showed that it is technically and economically feasible to build a manned lunar facility.