9 ms·
Have you seen "Time Machine"? There's a scenario where a moon-based mining project goes awry, causing moon fragments to fall to Earth and basically destroying a
by cglee 18y ago
Have you seen "Time Machine"? There's a scenario where a moon-based mining project goes awry, causing moon fragments to fall to Earth and basically destroying all advanced civilizations. I didn't think that was remotely possible, but maybe it is. Would love to see the article you mentioned.
- gojomo 18y agoSadly, a bunch of Googling and Yahooing hasn't turned up a reference. I'd seen the first blurb in print possibly as far back as the late 80s/early 90s, perhaps in 'Chemical and Engineering News'. (Their online archives only go back to 1998.) The later followup that suggested Soviets had done similar calculations might have been early-to-mid 90s, might have been online... but unsure. Yes, the moon-mining disaster in 2002's 'Time Machine' was pretty cool. The Orlando Bloom computer that still works 800K years in the future was more far-fetched than the moon collapsing, though. Turns out both the US and USSR considered demonstration nuclear explosions on the moon before thinking better of it: The US: http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/science/051600sci-us-nuke.html?st=cse&sq=nuke+moon+sagan&scp=1 http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/science/051600s... The USSR: http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/E3/E3orig.htm http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/E3/E3orig.htm And more recently, scientists have suggested a series of other-body-flybys could move the Earth to a further orbit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1154784.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1154784.stm