3 ms·
That was probably just written as an "out of the box" idea, not as a serious proposal. How much energy would it cost to stop the rotation of the Earth? And that
by tgv 3y ago
That was probably just written as an "out of the box" idea, not as a serious proposal. How much energy would it cost to stop the rotation of the Earth? And that should be spent in a matter of minutes. There's no source on Earth that can provid that power. And where would these "engines" be hooked? All over the globe, I suppose, because otherwise it wouldn't be very effective.
So no. To suggest "the US Air Force" had such a plan is most likely click-bait.
- mcbutterbunz 3y agoThis feels like a brainstorming exercise where you come up with a few bizarre ideas to open your mind a little. And you’re right, just because someone had an idea doesn’t make it a “plan”.
- anaganisk 3y agoEven if it was serious, anyone who could achieve that can thanos snap the humanity off earth, that's interesting.
- tgv 3y agoNot just humanity, practically all higher life, and a whole bunch of single cell organisms too.
- aerio 3y ago>How much energy would it cost to stop the rotation of the earth? it would require 2.6 x 1021 kilograms (5.7 x 1021 pounds) of propellant, which is "about 500 times the mass of the Earth’s atmosphere". According to the article.
- tgv 3y agoAccording to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Earth's atmosphere weighs one millionth of the Earth's mass. 0.5% can't be enough to stop rotating it, or it needs a lot more explanation than "propellant."
- aerio 3y agoSorry, some of the superscript got stripped out when copy/pasting to HN. The actual calculation is below: >2.6 x 1021²¹ kilograms (5.7 x 1021²¹ pounds) of propellant They don't say what propellant though, but I assume whatever kind of jet fuel they used at the time.