Quote:
Originally Posted by seneschal
I always wondered why, if the nuclear waste that caused the propulsive explosion was stored on the dark side of the moon, the satelite wasn't pushed into the Pacific instead of knocked out into the cosmos? But then we'd have Thundarr the Barbarian instead of Space 1999.  |
Because the moon is not in a fixed geostationary orbit. It still has it's "forward" velocity. The reason why the moon orbits the Earth is that is moves "forward" at the same rate that it "falls" towards the Earth, about 750m/sec or 2700kph. So unless the push was very, very great the forward movment would push the moon far enough out of line to miss the Earth and zip off into space. The effect it would have on the Earth while doing so would be cataclysmic.
THe major problem with that scientifically is that the moon is so massive (7.34x10^19 metric tons) that you would need an incredible amount of energy to move the thing a meaningful distance. 25 years of nuclear waste would be like Sort of like tieing a bottle rocket onto an aircraft carrier. You might leave a scorch mark, but you can't move the thing a measurable distance. You'd probably need to set off a small continent to get enough energy to get the moon moving.