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There exists good explanation. Moon kinetic energy is ~10^28 J. As stated in wikipedia, Sun Luminosity ~10^26 W. So to stop Moon, humanity should convert all L

by simne 2y ago

There exists good explanation. Moon kinetic energy is ~10^28 J. As stated in wikipedia, Sun Luminosity ~10^26 W. So to stop Moon, humanity should convert all Luminosity of Sun to force with 100% conversion rate for just 100 seconds, or just 1% for 3 hours (~10000 seconds). For comparison, whole humanity annual power consumption is about 580 000 000 * 10^10 J or 5.8*10^18 J, or about 10^13 W, so to achieve 1% of Sun luminosity per second, need about 10^6 seconds, or about 10 years. So in other words, if humanity will spend all consumed energy to stop Moon, will need about 10^10 seconds, or 10 000 years. Sure, alter orbit about 1% seem significant enough, this will be just 100 years at full power.

simne 2y ago
And yes, it is now hard to believe, that all humanity consumed power could be used in such project, but if use extraterrestrial resources, could cover all Moon with Solar panels and combine their power into few huge ion thrusters, and this will give comparable effect. Yes, this is not easy, but with current achievements with technologies (especially AI), looks like will become achievable to start such project in nearest decades.