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During the Cold War, the US had planned to detonate a nuclear weapon on the moon....with "A Study of Lunar Research Flights," or "Project A119"
In 2009 NASA's LCROSS mission used a Centaur missile that can be mated to an Atlas or a Titan ICBM to successfully bomb the moon. It wasn't a nuke but here's how powerful it was:
The actual impact occurred early in the morning on October 9, at about 7:30 am EDT/4:30 am PDT (11:30 UT), according to NASA:
The Centaur rocket will strike first, transforming 2200 kg of mass and 10 billion joules of kinetic energy into a blinding flash of heat and light. Researchers expect the impact to throw up a plume of debris as high as 10 km.
Close behind, the LCROSS mothership will photograph the collision for NASA TV and then fly right through the debris plume. Onboard spectrometers will analyze the sunlit plume for signs of water (H2O), water fragments (OH), salts, clays, hydrated minerals and assorted organic molecules.
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