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Note that by "nuking the moon" they just mean exploding a nuclear bomb on the moon mainly to show your enemies that you can and perhaps learn some interesting t

by tzs 3y ago

Note that by "nuking the moon" they just mean exploding a nuclear bomb on the moon mainly to show your enemies that you can and perhaps learn some interesting thing about the moon by watching the physical effects. There was someone who wanted to go a bit farther than just a bomb or two [1]. He wanted to completely destroy the moon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Abian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Abian

mr_toad 3y ago
The internet had a better class of crazy back in those days.
pvaldes 3y ago
Remind us that we need a protocol as species to remove people from the power ASAP if they turn insane.
arethuza 3y ago
"The proposed nuclear destruction of the Moon has been rejected by astronomers on several grounds" That made me laugh. I wonder if this is where Neal Stephenson got the idea for Seveneves which has the opening line "The moon blew up with no warning and with no apparent reason."
- ikari_pl 3y ago
  spoiler: we never learn the reason (it's not important to the story)
  - MeImCounting 3y ago
    I think it is important! It is an unspeakable unknowable dread hanging over the entire story. Its brought up later in the book and remains a very scary, very foreboding mystery. It implies either an unfathomably powerful and malicious force or an unfathomably powerful and uncaring force, both of which are terrifying.
- mtillman 3y ago
  Along those lines, Chairface from Tick and Tim Robbin’s classic “would you miss it?” defense from Austin powers.
- throwup238 3y ago
  I appreciated the section afterwards just as much. For a man who gained infamy for wanting to blow up the moon, his publications are on relatively boring topics in advanced math.
- aaronharnly 3y ago
  I like that "the heating of Earth's atmosphere by a hail of falling lunar debris would be destructive to all life" is only the second of three cited reasons for the proposal's rejection.
  - saalweachter 3y ago
    I think structurally it should have been third. As it's currently structured there are three objections. 1. We couldn't do it. 2. It would have disastrous side effects. 3. It wouldn't fix the problem you're trying to solve, and it would in fact make it worse. Objections 2&3 should be swapped, "all life on Earth would be vaporized" should really be issue #3.
- MadnessASAP 3y ago
  I would also like to print out: > And if it helps, he made it Over fifty years later and nobody thinks about nuking the moon very often anymore. Good job, Sagan. Mission failed, I am now thinking about nuking. A lot. Makes me wish I was a senior DoE officer in the 50s when you could nuke stuff to see what happened when stuff got nuked.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
woopsn 3y ago
> to avoid the debris reassembling into a satellite would require an amount of energy larger than the Moon gravitational binding energy, estimated to be 1.2 × 10^29 J.[2][3][4] This equals a bit less than 600 billion 50-megaton nuclear bombs, such as the Tsar Bomba,[5][4][2][6] roughly equivalent to the full energy output by the Sun in six minutes That's 33.33 quadrillion GWh. Or about two trillion times the annual energy consumption of Earth. If we somehow harnessed windfall energy on that scale, hmmm what to do, what to do... let's blow up the moon! There is no way to store or transport the energy though, it corresponds to hundreds of millions of tons of mass fused every second. Instead you would have to somehow beam or guide the full power of the sun towards the moon for several minutes. Pretty cool light show, for those who dare to look up... but don't miss!
- nullindividual 3y ago
  Even the Enterprise-D only outputs 6.8 x 10^19J from its phaser arrays. Looks like we’ll be waiting over 300 years for a single destructive device to destroy the Moon!
- throwup238 3y ago
  > Instead you would have to somehow beam or guide the full power of the sun towards the moon for several minutes. So what you're saying is... we need to build a Death Star.
  - GolfPopper 3y ago
    Nah, a sunbeam. (Courtesy of E.E. "Doc" Smith, Second Stage Lensmen, First serialized in Astounding," Nov 1941-Feb 1942.) Smith was the "trope-maker" for much of modern space-opera & SF. And as his stories went on, the scope of combat and forces involved just kept getting bigger. The Death Star is barely a capital ship by the standards of later Lensmen books, where a task force will regularly involve hundreds of immense ships, plantary masses worth of antimatter, and squadrons of armed and mobile planets. ("Starkiller Base" eat your heart out.) By the very end, exotic-matter planets were being used as ammunition.
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ck2 3y ago
What could possibly go wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime Radiation and high energy particles left in orbit destroyed one third of all satellites at the time after the next few months as they passed through that cloud. DOH
henriquecm8 3y ago
If he wanted to remove the moon from earth's orbit, he should've suggested that we mine the whole moon for resources.

by tzs 3y ago

mr_toad 3y ago

The internet had a better class of crazy back in those days.

pvaldes 3y ago

Remind us that we need a protocol as species to remove people from the power ASAP if they turn insane.

arethuza 3y ago

"The proposed nuclear destruction of the Moon has been rejected by astronomers on several grounds" That made me laugh. I wonder if this is where Neal Stephenson got the idea for Seveneves which has the opening line "The moon blew up with no warning and with no apparent reason."

ikari_pl 3y ago
spoiler: we never learn the reason (it's not important to the story)
- MeImCounting 3y ago
  I think it is important! It is an unspeakable unknowable dread hanging over the entire story. Its brought up later in the book and remains a very scary, very foreboding mystery. It implies either an unfathomably powerful and malicious force or an unfathomably powerful and uncaring force, both of which are terrifying.
mtillman 3y ago
Along those lines, Chairface from Tick and Tim Robbin’s classic “would you miss it?” defense from Austin powers.
throwup238 3y ago
I appreciated the section afterwards just as much. For a man who gained infamy for wanting to blow up the moon, his publications are on relatively boring topics in advanced math.
aaronharnly 3y ago
I like that "the heating of Earth's atmosphere by a hail of falling lunar debris would be destructive to all life" is only the second of three cited reasons for the proposal's rejection.
- saalweachter 3y ago
  I think structurally it should have been third. As it's currently structured there are three objections. 1. We couldn't do it. 2. It would have disastrous side effects. 3. It wouldn't fix the problem you're trying to solve, and it would in fact make it worse. Objections 2&3 should be swapped, "all life on Earth would be vaporized" should really be issue #3.
MadnessASAP 3y ago
I would also like to print out: > And if it helps, he made it Over fifty years later and nobody thinks about nuking the moon very often anymore. Good job, Sagan. Mission failed, I am now thinking about nuking. A lot. Makes me wish I was a senior DoE officer in the 50s when you could nuke stuff to see what happened when stuff got nuked.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

woopsn 3y ago

> to avoid the debris reassembling into a satellite would require an amount of energy larger than the Moon gravitational binding energy, estimated to be 1.2 × 10^29 J.[2][3][4] This equals a bit less than 600 billion 50-megaton nuclear bombs, such as the Tsar Bomba,[5][4][2][6] roughly equivalent to the full energy output by the Sun in six minutes That's 33.33 quadrillion GWh. Or about two trillion times the annual energy consumption of Earth. If we somehow harnessed windfall energy on that scale, hmmm what to do, what to do... let's blow up the moon! There is no way to store or transport the energy though, it corresponds to hundreds of millions of tons of mass fused every second. Instead you would have to somehow beam or guide the full power of the sun towards the moon for several minutes. Pretty cool light show, for those who dare to look up... but don't miss!

nullindividual 3y ago
Even the Enterprise-D only outputs 6.8 x 10^19J from its phaser arrays. Looks like we’ll be waiting over 300 years for a single destructive device to destroy the Moon!
throwup238 3y ago
> Instead you would have to somehow beam or guide the full power of the sun towards the moon for several minutes. So what you're saying is... we need to build a Death Star.
- GolfPopper 3y ago
  Nah, a sunbeam. (Courtesy of E.E. "Doc" Smith, Second Stage Lensmen, First serialized in Astounding," Nov 1941-Feb 1942.) Smith was the "trope-maker" for much of modern space-opera & SF. And as his stories went on, the scope of combat and forces involved just kept getting bigger. The Death Star is barely a capital ship by the standards of later Lensmen books, where a task force will regularly involve hundreds of immense ships, plantary masses worth of antimatter, and squadrons of armed and mobile planets. ("Starkiller Base" eat your heart out.) By the very end, exotic-matter planets were being used as ammunition.
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ck2 3y ago

What could possibly go wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime Radiation and high energy particles left in orbit destroyed one third of all satellites at the time after the next few months as they passed through that cloud. DOH

henriquecm8 3y ago

If he wanted to remove the moon from earth's orbit, he should've suggested that we mine the whole moon for resources.