Crazy Cold War Projects, Part 2 Quiz

Answer: Implanting cats with microphones and antennas to spy on Soviet agents

The actual procedure used in Acoustic Kitty was described by a former CIA agent and sounds quite gruesome, especially to cat lovers. Not only were surgeries done on cats to have the microphones and antennas (along with a battery to keep them functioning) implanted, but also they put in a wire to override the cat's sense of hunger to keep it from wandering off on the job. Details were not given as where the microphone and battery were placed, but the antenna supposedly ran up the cat's tail. Massive training was done so that the cats could be controlled and actually knew what to do, but the operation ended up not lasting very long.

Answer: The cat was hit by a taxi while crossing the road immediately after being released

Just after CIA operatives released a cat for Acoustic Kitty's first test run, a taxi ran it over. The only positive sign from the test was that the two men were actually across the street, so the cat may have actually been going towards them. The remains were collected quickly, but the project was considered a complete failure.

In 1967 the operation was dismantled. According to unclassified documents, the only redeeming factor that came out of Acoustic Kitty was that they learned cats could be trained to be used in surveillance, but "the environmental and security factors in using this technique in a real foreign situation force us to conclude that, for our purposes, it would not be practical."

Answer: Detonating a nuclear bomb underground to boil the deposits

One of many projects to use nuclear power for peaceful means (other than power plants), Project Oilsand was introduced by L.M. Natland, an employee of the American-based (but British Petroleum-owned) company Richfield Oil. The Athabasca Oil Sands have roughly 2 trillion barrels of oil locked in a semi-solid state called bitumen. Because of this, normal methods of drilling could not be used unless the viscosity was lowered to a more liquid-like state.

In theory the detonation of the 9-kiloton nuclear bomb underground would cause so much heat and pressure that the bitumen would boil to a lower viscosity, and open up a massive oil site very close to the United States.

Answer: Canada announced a new non-proliferation policy, and no nuclear detonations would happen in the country

Much like Project Iceworm in Greenland, Project Oilsand never got off the ground because the host country - this time Canada - moved to a non-proliferation status. It was determined that Canada could not risk possible Soviet incursion, whether outright or covert, because they allowed American nuclear detonations on (or under) their soil.

When it was originally accepted by the Federal Mines Department, Branch Director John Covey noted that the entire project may require up to 100 bombs: "That sounds like an awful lot of explosives, but you have to remember that this won't be accomplished overnight."

Answer: Faking Cuban terrorist attacks on US territory and property to justify an invasion of Cuba

Operation Northwoods was every conspiracy theorist's dream. The Joint Chiefs approved the plan in early 1962 and wrote a memo describing the plan to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13. The memo said that "World opinion, and the United Nations forum should be favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere." Since the plan also happened months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, it also made the point that "There is as yet no bilateral mutual support agreement binding the USSR to the defense of Cuba, Cuba has not yet become a member of the Warsaw Pact, nor have the Soviets established Soviet bases in Cuba."

Answer: Dress up marines in Cuban uniforms and stage an amphibious assault on Key West

All of the other choices given were considered for Operation Northwoods along with several other options for subverting Castro's power. The "Remember the Maine" re-creation also gave another option for blowing up an unmanned vessel anywhere in Cuban waters, and when Cuban planes and boats went to investigate, the US would claim that it was actually the attacking force. The terror campaign was proposed to go so far as to widely publicize the wounding of refugees in assassination attempts and to explode "a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots."

The use of aircraft also had several options. The Air Force would have the option of simply re-painting an F-86 to "convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MiG, especially if the pilot of the transport [commercial airliner] were to announce such fact." They also said "reasonable copies of the MiG could be produced from US resources in about three months." Also possible was the faking of said MiG to "shoot down" a made up commercial airliner going to a foreign country so that the flight plan would be over Cuba. Another break from that plan was to have agents board a plane, and when they were in the air an exact duplicate plane (unmanned) would rendezvous with it in the air and continue on the original's flight path, and the plane with the real passengers would go back to the US. The drone would then signal it was under attack once near Cuba and an explosive would be triggered via radio. It was also discussed that the fake MiG could be used to "shoot down" a USAF aircraft.

Answer: He flat out rejected the plan and denied the Joint Chiefs' chairman the opportunity to get another term

A memo from Ed Lansdale sent to the Joint Chiefs after meeting with President Kennedy stated the following: "The President said bluntly that we were not discussing the use of military force, that General Lemnitzer [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs] might find the U.S. so engaged in Berlin or elsewhere that he couldn't use the contemplated 4 divisions in Cuba." While Lemnitzer was denied the chance to get another term as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, in January 1963 he was named the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

It certainly didn't help the plan that less than a year before, the Bay of Pigs invasion had been a complete failure, and Kennedy had the top level of the CIA dismantled because of it. Thankfully, President Kennedy realized that the strategy of attacking yourself in order to attack someone else was just as insane as it sounds.

Answer: 3 years, 1 month, and 2 days

TMK-1 was planned to be launched on June 8, 1971, and not return to Earth until July 10, 1974. The flight to Mars would take an estimated 10.5 months, and the crew would drop remotely-controlled landers to the surface. Other variations actually had the crew also making a flyby of Venus, but there was no estimate to how much longer that would make the trip. To give a good example of how small a space the crew of three was supposed to live in during this time, the Cessna Skycatcher single-engine airplane has exterior dimensions of 2.53m x 6.95m x 9.14m, which means it has a total volume of just over 160 cubic meters. That still leaves it at 35 cubic meters larger than the living area on TMK-1.

Answer: A nuclear-powered "Mars Train" would be assembled on the surface from parts kept on the spacecraft

TMK-E was supposedly going to be powered using nuclear-powered ion engines, which could be taken from the ship and used to power a "Mars Train" that would be assembled on the Martian surface. The train itself would include a crew cabin, a launch cabin with a "convertiplane" capable of vertical takeoff included for air travel, two launch wagons each with a rocket capable of leaving the Martian atmosphere to return to TMK-E, and the caboose would be the nuclear reactor powering the train.

The crew was supposed to actually go from pole to pole collecting soil samples and doing assorted research before returning to Earth. Curiously, the TMK-E mission was estimated to take only 1,000 days, making it shorter than the TMK-1 mission even with the year-long stop on Mars.

Answer: No tests made it out of Earth's atmosphere without it being destroyed

The N1 rocket went through four different tests. The first exploded at just over 12 kilometers in the air after 69 seconds of flight. The second is perhaps the most famous, exploding after only 23 seconds with 2,600 tons of fuel on board. Both of those tests occurred in 1969. Two years later, the third test was destroyed after 51 seconds at only one kilometer off the ground.

The final test took place in late 1972, and made it to 40 kilometers after nearly 107 seconds, but an explosion completely demolished the craft.

In 1974, the N1 program was stopped, and with it ended Soviet aspirations for both moon and Mars landings.