Destroying the Moon: 10 Handy Methods

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

In his October 2000 column, the Perfect Master addressed the inquiry, “I plan to destroy the moon. What effect would this have on the earth?”.

Later that month, a poster wondered how that task might be accomplished.

Well science presses onwards. Gentleman and scholar Sam Hughes has now compiled the Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth. (Alternate link (includes forum!).)

Given this list, destroying the moon should be child’s play: as the Bad Astronomer noted the Earth, “has 81 times the mass of the Moon, so it takes 81*81 = 6500 times the energy to blow up the Earth.”

The remainder I will leave as an exercise for the reader.

2

According to H G Wells, IIRC, the moon is gone by the year 802,701 … but I don’t recollect whether that was a natural catastrophe or done by the hand of man.

3

Actually, the moon disappears after the year 802,701. Pretty mild spoiler, IMHO:The Traveller escapes the baddies in that year, pushes the time levers forward and, as the thousands of days dial accelerates into a blur, notices to our shock/horror, “All trace of the moon had vanished.” It appears to be some sort of extinction event. Civilization has ended; one surmises that the cause was human or post-human folly.