Campaign Ammo Moon Rocks -

[TowinKarz]

This kind of ignorance is infuriating, even if it is common, simply because it shouldn't be, the physics of spaceflight can easily be understood if you just read a "dumbed down" version that many actual scientists have written for our benefit.

Yet bad thinking like this still persists. I hate it. It's the same way that every "reasons you shouldn't vote for X for President" includes the boilerplate "you want THIS person in charge of nuclear weapons?!" as if there really is a big red button on the corner of the Executive desk that launches EVERYTHING if you push it..... it's fear mongering, the only thing that mitigates it slightly is if the person saying it is just as ignorant as the ones they're trying to scare with it, otherwise, they're knowingly scaring people with a scenario that cannot happen, and that's deplorable.

 

[melty]

So don't focus on the science part of the issue. I think it's correct that a lot of people don't know or care about why you can't drop rocks from the moon onto earth.
However people LOVE Elon Musk and SpaceX.
So maybe frame as "Brianna Wu believes Elon Musk has plans to build secret Moon base to fire rocks at Earth"
Everyone can understand that's batshit and it's offensive to people who like hearing about SpaceX.

 

[Ravenor]

Excuse the sperg but seeing as this is the "Dropping rocks thread"...

Im a Paxopigi inualowda, Im kakafelota ji-ral nichts kemang like pampaw in rosse buurt take dis pashang bap kuxaku du fleota.

Normal sperging will now resume also if you're not @TremendousBoredom and you understood that - Ma Beltalowda compain!

 

[Antipathy]

So don't focus on the science part of the issue. I think it's correct that a lot of people don't know or care about why you can't drop rocks from the moon onto earth.
However people LOVE Elon Musk and SpaceX.
So maybe frame as "Brianna Wu believes Elon Musk has plans to build secret Moon base to fire rocks at Earth"
Everyone can understand that's batshit and it's offensive to people who like hearing about SpaceX.

"Elon Musk to build Moon base to conquer world, says Wu, donate to SpaceX, and perhaps she'll be right about the first part."

 

[DatBepisTho]

Just now finding about about this and . New favorite batshit conspiracy theory.

Thanks, Wu.

 

[Gym Leader Elesa]

Just now finding about about this and . New favorite batshit conspiracy theory.

Thanks, Wu.

I think the question that needs asking is: is there cheese pizza up there?

 

[DatBepisTho]

I think the question that needs asking is: is there cheese pizza up there?

Moon is supposedly made of cheese, ergo the government had free pizza and lied to us all along.

It's kind of fun coming up with stupid shit, no wonder Wu does it all the time.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Wu better not discover the conspiracy that dates back to the 1990s...

 

[DatBepisTho]

Wu better not discover the conspiracy that dates back to the 1990s...

You fool, you've doomed us all.

 

[DykesDykesChina]

I'm trying to think of ways to explain why the moon rock thing is bullshit in a way that ordinary people can understand. Maybe just say such a thing would require rockets that don't currently exist?

American schools: Still not up to international standards in natural sciences.
Vote for better physics teaching, not for the tech industry!

[Image of Brianna's tweet below]

Needless to say, they were destroyed by an asteroid that had far more kinetic energy than any rock from the Moon would have. It would take a long approach path to build up the momentum you'd need for an extinction event.

The length of the approach path is not so much of an issue: The moon is already quite far up earth's gravity well, an object free-falling in from lunar orbit would strike earth pretty much at the same impact velocity than if it approached from infinity, that is ~ 11 km/2.

Impacting asteroids can have larger velocities, though -- up to 60 km/s -- because they are in orbit around the sun and their orbital velocity and earth's velocity will add up if they collide frontally (some asteroids have retrograde orbits). At earth's distance from the sun, you get an orbital velocity of 30 km/s, so a full-frontal collision of two bodies, one pro-grade, one retrograde, would yield 60 km/s.

11 km/s would be sufficient, though, for a dinosaur-killer event, if there was a sufficiently large mass approaching at that velocity; this means an asteroid several miles across. There is no foreseeable technology that could lift such a mass from the lunar surface and sent it towards earth. (Super-Orion nuclear pulse could somewhat come close, it would be able to accelerate a million tons at 1 g -- but the masses of large asteroids are several orders of magnitude larger.)

What *would* arguably be dangerous would be to attach an ion drive to a near-earth asteroid and gradually nudge the thing into earth's way. That said, a law dealing with these things could possibly in a certain way make sense; maybe something along the lines of: "Altering the orbits of asteroids of diameter 100 m and above without agreement from an absolute majority of governments of nations is prohibited..." Obviously, this would have to be an UN sort of thing, not something to be discussed in US Congress.

 

[BadaBadaBoom]

See this is why you should always take name brand HRT medications over the generic stuff.

 

[AnOminous]

The length of the approach path is not so much of an issue: The moon is already quite far up earth's gravity well, an object free-falling in from lunar orbit would strike earth pretty much at the same impact velocity than if it approached from infinity, that is ~ 11 km/2.

I mean relativistic velocities. Those would take a substantial amount of time to accelerate to. It would be easier just to find something already moving nearly that fast or, if you had the time to wait, something pretty high up in the Solar System's gravity well. A relatively small rock going really, really fast could be better than a huge rock just dropped from somewhere around the Moon's orbit.

 

[Strelok]

I mean relativistic velocities. Those would take a substantial amount of time to accelerate to. It would be easier just to find something already moving nearly that fast or, if you had the time to wait, something pretty high up in the Solar System's gravity well. A relatively small rock going really, really fast could be better than a huge rock just dropped from somewhere around the Moon's orbit.

As mentioned before, what you are describing is already something military theorists have come up with. Just get some telephone pole sized tungsten rods in orbit, and de-orbit them at anyone who pisses you off. The US air force has repeatedly discussed such a weapon, especially as it technically doesn't violate the space weapons treaty, as it's neither Nuclear, Biological, nor Chemical.

And none of it requires using the fucking moon.

 

[AnOminous]

As mentioned before, what you are describing is already something military theorists have come up with. Just get some telephone pole sized tungsten rods in orbit, and de-orbit them at anyone who pisses you off. The US air force has repeatedly discussed such a weapon, especially as it technically doesn't violate the space weapons treaty, as it's neither Nuclear, Biological, nor Chemical.

And none of it requires using the fucking moon.

Using the Moon is a minus. There'd be absolutely no reason to do that unless, like in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, you actually already had stuff in place for launching stuff from the Moon for other reasons. And there's really no reason to build that stuff.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

Using the Moon is a minus. There'd be absolutely no reason to do that unless, like in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, you actually already had stuff in place for launching stuff from the Moon for other reasons. And there's really no reason to build that stuff.

We can argue the plusses and minuses of lunar warfare till the cows come home but it doesn't change the fact what Wu is talking about remains entirely in the realm of science fiction. Flynt may as well have made designing an actual Voight-Kampff test a central part of his platform for all he really knows of this stuff.

 

[AnOminous]

We can argue the plusses and minuses of lunar warfare till the cows come home but it doesn't change the fact what Wu is talking about remains entirely in the realm of science fiction. Flynt may as well have made designing an actual Voight-Kampff test a central part of his platform for all he really knows of this stuff.

I'd like to see John pass a Voight-Kampff test himself.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

I'd like to see John pass a Voight-Kampff test himself.

It's not even necessary. Deckard would take one look at him and immediately issue John his retirement papers.

 

[Zelos Wilder]

This is the plot of Call of Duty ghosts.

 

[fuckidunno]

This is the plot of Call of Duty ghosts.

and the upcoming blockbuster phone app Revolution 69 : Anorexic Mary Sue Space Lesbians Get Their Rocks Off...the moon

 

[Cedric_Eff]

It’s hilarious to think she ripped this off of Metal Armor Dragonar. Literally taking its plot to launch small meteorites with a mass driver at the earth.