Could we blow up the moon?

[All Seeing Eye]

Destroy it by throwing it out of orbit? no.

How about throwing it out of orbit and into the Sun.

My own proposal is to dig hundreds of holes to the centre of the moon.The centre of the moon will be filled with nukes. The tunnels/holes shall be filled with nukes from the Moons centre to the Moons surface. Once detonated the Moon will explode into multiple chunks.

 

[Silvercrest]

^How do you know it will?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Therefore, in a way, the Moon could very well hit our eyes like a big pizza pie. THAT's amore.

 

[sto vo kor]

Destroy it by throwing it out of orbit? no.

How about throwing it out of orbit and into the Sun.

My own proposal is to dig hundreds of holes to the centre of the moon.The centre of the moon will be filled with nukes. The tunnels/holes shall be filled with nukes from the Moons centre to the Moons surface. Once detonated the Moon will explode into multiple chunks.

But how would you get something that big out of orbit?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

This sounds like the scenario from the miniseries "Impact" that was shown on the Sci-Fi channel in the UK recently. The science was really crap as was everything else about the series.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Destroy it by throwing it out of orbit? no.

How about throwing it out of orbit and into the Sun.

But how would you get something that big out of orbit?

You could get the Moon out of orbit by as little as 1 Newton of continual force. So if we developed and built a large Fusion engine or perhaps a large matter/anti-matter engine we could apply a much larger force and gradually move the Moon away from Earth until it breaks free of Earths gravity and breaks orbit. If we used a conventional nuclear engine it would of course take longer but I believe we could do it if money was not a problem.

 

[sojourner]

^ With current technology, the biggest engine we could develop would take thousands of years to push the moon out of orbit.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Destroy it by throwing it out of orbit? no.

How about throwing it out of orbit and into the Sun.

My own proposal is to dig hundreds of holes to the centre of the moon.The centre of the moon will be filled with nukes. The tunnels/holes shall be filled with nukes from the Moons centre to the Moons surface. Once detonated the Moon will explode into multiple chunks.

But how would you get something that big out of orbit?

Build a nuclear waste dump on the darkside and light it.

 

[Timewalker]

I like the moon...

So do I! Why do people want to blow up the Moon? What did the Moon ever do to us?

What does blow it up mean?

Would splitting it into two approximately equal lumps, in relatively steady orbit about one another qualify?

Or to completely reduce it to dust? Because that would require us to provide it's gravitational binding energy.

I'm assuming something where the remains couldn't be classed as moons themselves. So maybe chunks of smalller than say a few miles diameter, but if we end up a ring system like Saturn, great! :-)

And I think one caveat should be that what ever method of destruction is decided upon it doesn't involve the earth also being destroyed.

You can't specify the method not involving Earth being destroyed, unless you mean just the planet still being here. Life on Earth would suffer immeasurably, as so much depends on tides, gravity, reflected light, etc.

There was a movie not too long ago an giant asteroid impact the moon and caused a volcanic eruption on the moon and then moon was heading towards earth. It caused earths magnetic fields to weaken and youll see people animals and things losing gravy and youll start floating. So its best we leave the moon alone and not do anything stupid.

That's okay. I'm allergic to gravy, so losing it is no big deal for me...

 

[sojourner]

There was a movie not too long ago an giant asteroid impact the moon and caused a volcanic eruption on the moon and then moon was heading towards earth. It caused earths magnetic fields to weaken and youll see people animals and things losing gravy and youll start floating. So its best we leave the moon alone and not do anything stupid.

That's okay. I'm allergic to gravy, so losing it is no big deal for me...

It makes me sad that someone believed the bad science from a bad SyFy channel movie. Unless steve1961's post was sarcasm? Please tell me it was sarcasm.

 

[Myasishchev]

Destroy it by throwing it out of orbit? no.

How about throwing it out of orbit and into the Sun.

My own proposal is to dig hundreds of holes to the centre of the moon.The centre of the moon will be filled with nukes. The tunnels/holes shall be filled with nukes from the Moons centre to the Moons surface. Once detonated the Moon will explode into multiple chunks.

But how would you get something that big out of orbit?

It could be done with a mass of arbitrary size perturbing it out of orbit, but only if you've got the time.

 

[Michael_One]

I Am Legend strikes again with his ' 1 newton thruster ', last seen moving the moons of Saturn around. Yes, you could use a one newton thruster to accelerate the Moon out of orbit and ram it into Mars but the Sun would go through its red giant phase long before the Moon got very far. Even after a billion years one newton of thrust displaces the Moon only a couple hundred kilometers. That figure is very generous and from a real quick estimate I did.

Oh, and blowing the Moon up? That would take so many nukes its effectively impossible. You'd just as well make a reaaaaaly big solar sail and let that tug the Moon away.

 

[Dream]

That's no moon. That's a space station.

A few X-Wings should do the trick.

 

[Silvercrest]

Attacking the moon ain't my idea of courage. It's more like... suicide.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I Am Legend strikes again with his ' 1 newton thruster ', last seen moving the moons of Saturn around. Yes, you could use a one newton thruster to accelerate the Moon out of orbit and ram it into Mars but the Sun would go through its red giant phase long before the Moon got very far. Even after a billion years one newton of thrust displaces the Moon only a couple hundred kilometers. That figure is very generous and from a real quick estimate I did.

Oh, and blowing the Moon up? That would take so many nukes its effectively impossible. You'd just as well make a reaaaaaly big solar sail and let that tug the Moon away.

You need to go back and read what I've said. At no point did I say to move the moon out of orbit with a single newton of force. I said you COULD move it out of orbit with one Newton of force and there sir is a massive difference. A nuclear or fusion or matter/antimatter propulsion rocket would apply far more than a single Newton of force.

 

[Squiggy]

I like the moon...

The moon knows what it did.

Destroy it by throwing it out of orbit? no.

How about throwing it out of orbit and into the Sun.

Why?

My own proposal is to dig hundreds of holes to the centre of the moon.The centre of the moon will be filled with nukes. The tunnels/holes shall be filled with nukes from the Moons centre to the Moons surface. Once detonated the Moon will explode into multiple chunks.

I don't think you know how big the moon is...and if you were to destroy the moon in a center-out explosion then Earth's gravity would have something to say for the debris.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

if you were to destroy the moon in a center-out explosion then Earth's gravity would have something to say for the debris.

Go read the OP. Why oh why do people not read OPs correctly?

Here let me quote the important bit for you:

regardless of the massive environmental impact it would have on ecosystems, animals and werewolves.

In other words we're not discussing why we're doing it nor what the effects would be. We are merely discussing ways of destroying the Moon anything else such as the impact of doing such a thing is irrelevant.

 

[Silvercrest]

Yes indeed! Reading the OP is a good idea. Especially the part where it says:

Could humans destroy the moon with our current technology?

Taccy, we don't currently have fusion engines or matter/antimatter engines. We also don't have digging equipment that can dig holes 1000 miles deep while operating in vacuum. If the OP asks about current technology, then anything else is irrelevant.

 

[Ronald Held]

Does anyone think of the effects on the Earth for a sudden displacement of the Moon, or even its explosion?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Yes indeed! Reading the OP is a good idea. Especially the part where it says:

Could humans destroy the moon with our current technology?

Taccy, we don't currently have fusion engines or matter/antimatter engines. We also don't have digging equipment that can dig holes 1000 miles deep while operating in vacuum. If the OP asks about current technology, then anything else is irrelevant.

That's why I also mentioned conventional nuclear rockets which is within our technology.

Here's the quote:

If we used a conventional nuclear engine it would of course take longer but I believe we could do it if money was not a problem.

Also I beg to differ on your opinion we can't dig those holes and plant those nukes, we do have the technology and expertise to do it but we don't have the money because how our economy works.

There's a difference between something being within our technology level and something being unaffordable.