In the vein of the original column i’d just like to know how all you ingenius little gnomes out there would actually go about blowing up the moon. Stuff the consequences, I just want ideas about how to it. The less conventional the better. If we could just get a goat up to the necessary velocity… (obscure thread reference)
I plan to destroy the moon. What effect would this have on the earth?
By the way, the goat thread is nowhere near as obscure as it ought to be.
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(edited to correct irrelevant link being supplied)
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[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 10-28-2000 at 12:50 PM]
Ok, if you’re serious about removing the moon at our current stage of technology there’s really only one way to go about doing it.
Rockets, lots of rockets.
It would take a massive, earthwide, no holds barred, cost is no concern, operation. In short, the government would have to do it.
A base would have to be put on the near side of the moon where we would construct lots and lots of rockets. The rockets would continually fire and slowly, ever so slowly, push the moon further and further from the earth, untill eventually it went into it’s own, independent, path about the sun.
A little anticlimactic, but we could do it.
And what sort of rockets are you proposing??? And where are you going to get the power needed?
NASA has seriously considered moving astronomical bodies. However, what they wanted to go after was a little chunk of rock on the order of 100m across. The moon is more than 20,000 times the diameter. Mass goes up at the cube of radius--thus we are talking a task 8,000,000,000,000 times harder.I would suggest using Ion drives. These are engines that can be run constantly for months or years at a time. They electromagnetically accelerate charged particles up to relativistic speeds and shoot them out the back of the engine. Due to the conservation of momentum the push of that little particle leaving the engine is directly transfered into pushing the moon in the opposite direction. You could make millions of these and power them using solar cells. Now, I’m not saying that this is a fast way to do it, I’m just saying it’s the only realistic option available at the time.
How about mirrors? Set up mirrors on the moon. When the moon is on the Sun side of Earth, or opposite the Earth fro the Sun, mirrors reflect the light to push the Moon in the direction of it’s orbit. When the Moon is moving away from the Sun, mirrors reflect the light back to the Sun, and when the Moon is moving towards the Sun, reflect the light Towards the Earth, to boost the Moon to a higher orbit. Since the same side of the Moon faces Earth, the mirrors could be stationary.
It might take a while, however.
rockets and mirrors? why not use nukes?
First, you’d need a scientific settlement on the moon called, say Moonbase Alpha. Then you’d need a nuclear accident gone horribly, horribly wrong of epic proportions enough to blow the moon out of orbit, yet not of proportions enough to destroy the moonbase. Then the gang would careen about the universe for a couple of seasons meeting strange life forms and having all sorts of white knuckle adventures.
No, wait. That’s been done. But does anyone know why it’s not been picked up on cable rerun syndication?
Meanwhile, I remember seeing one of those fascinating cable bug channel shows that advised that without the moon, life would on earth likely not exist, since the moon is largely responsible for keeping the earth on a (largely) constant AXIS, let alone orbit. Without it, the earth would wobble on its axis, resulting in Ice Age, Drought, Ice Age, Drought, and it wouldn’t take a coupla hundred thousand years between, neither.
So that’s my first post. But I particularly enjoyed the thread about life’s most embarrassing sex moments.
Ion drives could use the mass of the moon as reaction material, but you still need to supply the energy--energy on a scale far beyond what human civilization currently produces. The last sentance is the key. The moon would depart naturally before the mirrors were enough to make a difference. I seriously doubt you can mine enough fissionables.Come on- how many freakin nukes has america got? we could use them for something worthwhile, such as splintering the moon into manageable bits, ratehr than have them all decay.
That is, the nukes decay, not the bits of moon. So incomprehensible.
Blowing up the Moon is literally impossible with our current nuclear arsenal. I have a description of what it takes to destroy a planet at http://www.badastronomy.com/wwwboard/messages/327.html.
Using numbers for the Moon (radius = 1738 km, mass=7.35x10^25 grams) I find that it takes about 30 trillion megatons (3x10^13) to blow the Moon up. Considering the largest bomb ever claimed to have been exploded was less than 100 megatons, we’re a bit short of the mark.
A collision with Eros could do it, but Eros would have to be moving incredibly fast, about 5000 kilometers/second, to give it enough energy to wipe out the Moon. That’s a good fraction of the speed of light.
So: don’t hold your breath!
Bad Astronomer- can nukes at least nudge it out of the way? (I was responding to the ridiculous ideas of mirrors and ion drives)
About 15 years ago the Wall Street Journal ran an article about a university professor who promoted the idea of eliminating the mooon. I don’t recall all of his arguments, but some of them related to the emotions ‘caused’ by full moons. It was rank pseudo-science.
From the start of the argument, it seems that he – and Cecil – have underestimated the impact on life that would result from elimination of the inter-tidal zone. It would eliminate an environment for spawning of thousands of species. At worst it would limit the area in which crabs, turtles and countless other species lay eggs and have them incubate. Results: less breeding ground, increased competition for environment, increased predation, disruption of age-old patterns of feeding and breeding.
Disclaimer: I’m not a biologist but simply someone who lives near an inter-tidal zone.
You are all going about this the wrong way. Rockets, nukes, ion drives??? Piffle.
If we want to destroy the moon all we need to do is shuttle the population of the Peoples Republic of China up to the Sea of Tranquility, with one chair each. Then we simply get them to stand up on their chairs and all jump off at the same time.
I can’t believe that no one else thought of this idea.
I just wanted to welcome Bad Astronomer to the boards. You helped me out when I was after some info on the ‘moon landing hoax’ conspiracy, and I hope you stick around to add your scientific knowledge for the benefit of those of us with a great knowledge of science, but not much in the way of background.
HenrySpencer