# Let's bring the moon home **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969 "2003-08-04T21:11:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dark\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@Dark\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Brown)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/1 "2003-08-04T21:11:36Z")
Couldn’t we bring it back, place it somewhere in the Pacific and turn it into an enormous resort? Maybe hollow out the inside and create an amusement park? Is it possible to bring the moon back to Earth? I’d think that once it is significantly within our gravity it would begin accelerating towards us at a disastrous rate. This would likely be the largest hurdle. What technology do we have that would allow us to reel it in? Could we slow it down in any way to allow a gentle splashdown in the ocean? Perhaps we could take it apart and bring back the pieces, only to reassemble it once it is home. What effect would it have on our orbit if it was here? I’d imagine its displacement of ocean water would cause coastal flooding, but what if it was hollowed out a bit and allowed to fill with water. I can’t imagine how beautiful it would look on the horizon as it was approached. Am I missing anything here? ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/2 "2003-08-04T21:44:15Z")
“What are you missing here?” The totally impracticality of the enterprise comes to mind. Let’s pretend that you could somehow transport the moon to the Earth instantaneously, thereby sidestepping the enormous energy requirements and incidentally giving the poor planet a few extra moments of reprieve from the approaching calamity. The moon is now sitting in the Pacific Ocean. The moon is roughly 3500 km in diameter, so the depth of the ocean is insignificant. We now have a 3500 km mountain sticking out of the planet. The highest existing mountain is less than 10 km high. This tells you all you need to know about the ability of rock to withstand that kind of stress. So…you have huge, HUGE, chunks of rock, falling from well beyond the atmosphere as the moon disintegrates. The energy involved far outstrips our nuclear arsenals, probably by several thousand times. The atmosphere gets stripped away. The ocean boils. The hemisphere on which you dropped the moon gets covered with a miles thick layer of hot molten moon rock. The inhabitants of that hemisphere are the lucky ones. You’ve just dumped 7.35x10^22 kg onto one half the planet. Enough to move the center of gravity considerably. So the Earth’s rotation and orbit become eccentric. Aside from the heat, radiation, and abject terror, the few survivors also have terrible motion sickness in the days or hours before tidal and tectonic forces rip the continents apart. Aside from that, it should be quite the tourist attraction… ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/3 "2003-08-04T21:54:37Z")
I love this one. Ok, let me ask this minor question. When we hollow out the moon, where do you propose we dump the material? What, precisely, should we bury in billions of tons of rock? Several of our cities? Maybe fill in some of our minor bodies of water such as THE PACIFIC OCEAN? What are you missing? For starters, a fundamental understanding of space science, earth science, physics and probably economics. Sorry, but this one’s really out there. ---
**Author:** ![darksight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@darksight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/darksight)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/4 "2003-08-04T21:59:10Z")
This is one of the funniest exchanges I have read on Straight Dope ~ ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/5 "2003-08-04T22:05:18Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Dark Brown_ > Am I missing anything here? Yes. I really don’t feel there’s any need to say more. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/6 "2003-08-04T22:26:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dark Brown \* > **I’d think that once it is significantly within our gravity it would begin accelerating towards us at a disastrous rate.** The moon is already very much ‘in our gravity’ - that is precisely why it remains in orbit. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/7 "2003-08-04T22:27:03Z")
Admit it, **Dark Brown** : you’re actually a [Spongmonkey](http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/). ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/8 "2003-08-04T22:30:48Z")
To get the moon to the earth we would have to steal the energy it has by transfering the mommentum it has to the earth. To do this in any reasonable amount of time would no doubt heat up the earth enough to boil away the oceans. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/9 "2003-08-05T00:23:00Z")
It’s all been said already. But for SF/fantasy fans, check out Larry Niven’s _The Magic Goes Away_, in which a task force of prehistoric magicians (fighting against the depleted supply of magic in the world) attempt to do precisely this. It’s an amazingly good story. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/10 "2003-08-05T00:46:28Z")
For an idea of what might happen if the Moon “comes back home,” check out this description of when the Moon “left” in the first place: > [@](#): > > It would have been a good day to stay indoors. The surface of the Earth melted. A large part of the rocky mantle was hurled into orbit. But when the smoke cleared, there was a new Moon - literally - in the sky. From this link: [http://www.nature.com/nsu/010816/010816-14.html](http://www.nature.com/nsu/010816/010816-14.html) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Bad\_Astronomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@The\_Bad\_Astronomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bad_Astronomer)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/11 "2003-08-05T02:08:22Z")
Bringing the Moon in is the biggest hurdle. Mass = 7.35 x 10^22 kg. Velocity = 1km/s. Kinetic energy = 1/2 \* mass \* velocity^2 = 3.7 x 10^28 Joules. That’s equivalent to 9 trillion megatons of energy. So, where do you find that kind of energy? That’s about a 900 hundred million times the nuclear arsenal of the planet, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/12 "2003-08-05T02:12:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CC \* > \*\*I love this one. Ok, let me ask this minor question. When we hollow out the moon, where do you propose we dump the material? \*\* We hollow it out before reeling it in and use the material to build a new, smaller and much more interesting moon (Disneyland builders as contractors) in the same orbit. That way we can have our cake and eat it too. ---
**Author:** ![SkyBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@SkyBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkyBum)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/13 "2003-08-05T07:14:37Z")
**jr8** , that spongemonkey link was hilarious! How the hell did you find that? ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/14 "2003-08-05T07:27:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by David Simmons \* > \*\*We hollow it out before reeling it in and use the material to build a new, smaller and much more interesting moon (Disneyland builders as contractors) in the same orbit. That way we can have our cake and eat it too. \*\* Fantastic! small children gazing up at a ‘full Mickey’ as a gigantic mouse head orbits the Earth. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/15 "2003-08-05T08:03:56Z")
I imagine, if you just tried to “bump” it Earthbound (gratuitous Great Game Plug), tidal stresses would rip it apart, so instead of one massive object that kills everyone at once, you get a massive amount of dirt, dust and debris raining down, causing nuclear winter, and killing everyone slowly. Mmmm… dying slowly… ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/16 "2003-08-05T08:11:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Carl\_A\_Norris \* > **Fantastic! small children gazing up at a 'full Mickey’** Is that anything like the full monty, because if so, kids proooobably shouldn’t be looking at it. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/17 "2003-08-05T10:00:49Z")
I’m surprised no one’s suggested carving their name in the moon with a giant laser yet. “CHA…” > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SkyBum \* > \*\ ***jr8** , that spongemonkey link was hilarious! How the hell did you find that? \*\* I am a huge, huge fan of the insane ramblings that make up the [www.rathergood.com](http://www.rathergood.com) site. Check out the kitten songs too. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/18 "2003-08-05T11:22:41Z")
I’m reminded of _The Face_ by **Jack Vance** , where the villain, insulted by a planet’s inhabitants, has aquired mining rights to a planet’s moon. He spends a fortune laying a tracery of explosives all over (or just under) the surface and intends to sculpt the moon with high explosive into the shape of his own head, looking down on the planet! ---
**Author:** ![Nim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/67e7ee/32.png) [@Nim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nim)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/19 "2003-08-05T13:45:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Couldn’t we bring it back, place it somewhere in the Pacific and turn it into an enormous resort?" Wouldn’t it be more practical to take the tourists to the moon instead? > [@](#): > > I can’t imagine how beautiful it would look on the horizon as it was approached. Probably less beautiful than it looks up in the night sky. > [@](#): > > Perhaps we could take it apart and bring back the pieces, only to reassemble it once it is home. Maybe we should practice first with some mountains before we do this with the moon. Lets take Mount Everest apart and then try to put it back together again to improve our skills. And then later we can try taking the Antartica apart and putting it back together again. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969/20 "2003-08-05T13:53:34Z")
Faced with the loss of lunar tides, the Bay of Fundy Tourism Agency will be strongly opposed to any displacement of the moon and will bury you in injunctions and nuisance lawsuits for years to come. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-bring-the-moon-home/192969.md?page=2)