Wikipedia
The Green Cheese missile was a British-made radar-guided anti-ship tactical nuclear warhead missile project of the 1950s. It was developed by Fairey Aviation to be used by the Fairey Gannet shipborne anti-submarine warfare aircraft, and was originally called Fairey Project 7. However, the missile's 3,800 lb (1720 kg) weight proved to be too heavy for the Gannet, and would have required modifications to the Gannet's bomb bay to expose the missiles' seeker heads to the target before launch. The missile project continued, since the Blackburn Buccaneer naval strike aircraft had a rotating bomb bay which was ideally suited to the task.
The project was cancelled in 1956 due in part to cost over-runs, at which point it had a reached a stage called Cockburn Cheese (after the British military scientist Dr. Robert Cockburn), and was replaced with the Green Flash project. This too was cancelled and the idea of a tactical nuclear-tipped guided missile for anti-shipping use was given up in favour of a simple " lobbed" tactical nuclear bomb, the WE.177A
The name was randomly generated as one of the UK's Rainbow Codes.
Green cheese is a term for a fresh cheese, one that has not thoroughly dried yet, nor been aged, which is white in colour and usually round in shape. The Oxford English Dictionary gives a reference from the year 1542 of the four sorts of cheese. The first sort is green cheese, which is not green by reason of colour but for its newness, for the whey is not half pressed out of it yet. The phrase is not commonly used to describe the colour of a cheese, though there are some cheeses with a greenish tint, usually from mold or added herbs. The word "green" for new has other uses, such as greenhorn for an inexperienced person.
Usage examples of "green cheese".
Hence a leader, if he can isolate his followers long enough, can convince them that the moon is made of green cheese.
Once he managed to fall solidly asleep and began to dream of the round-faced man of the four coins holding out a wedge of green cheese on a glowing platter while a great wooden clock behind him chimed the hours and paintings of the sun and moon on the dock face spun dizzily, lopping off the days as if they were seconds.
It is my understanding that space is chock-full of things like the moon and the asteroids, which are not made of green cheese.
But Jack Pumpkinhead grew a lot of things in his garden besides pumpkins, so he cooked for them a fine vegetable soup and gave Dorothy, Ojo and Toto, the only ones who found it necessary to eat, a pumpkin pie and some green cheese.
From this exotic and peculiarly green cheese, a favorite of Langford's, issued an aroma so powerful and penetrating that it knocked small dogs unconscious, turned particularly sensitive young children into lifelong catatonics, and caused automobile headlamps to explode at a distance of half a block.
The word was that they were queer for each other, but Garraty believed that like he believed the moon was green cheese.
It launches one into the moon, which, like the one outside the gourd, is made of green cheese on its near side.