[Q] Can we blow a five mile wide crater on the moon?

[Moontanman]

In a blog on another site it has been claimed that NASA or the USA have a kinetic energy weapon in place to blow a five mile wide crater on the moon. It is darkly suggested it is to destroy a secrete base on the moon or at least a practice test should it ever become necessary to do so.

 

My take on this is there is no way we could blow a five mile wide crater on the moon simply because of the energy requirements of such a blast. We simply could not do it!

 

Anyone want to add to this?

[UncleAl]

Ivy-Mike was a ~11 megaton thermonuclear detonation at ground level. It excavated a crater 1.2 miles in diameter and 164 feet deep. Ground penetration is required for crater excavation. 50% of the energy of a surface detonation simply radiates into space horizontally and vertically. There is no blast damage in vacuum. Mach-stem wave intersection, incoming and ground-reflected, is a major booster of atmospheric detonation blast damage.

 

A megaton is 4.184x10^15 joules. Lunar regolith masses about 3 tonnes/meter^3. Calculate the potential energy (mah) plus kinetic (mv^2)/2 for excavatinging a spherical cap crater 5 miles wide. The Barringer Crater impactor was ~150 feet in diameter, massed ~300,000 tons, and did ~5.4 miles/second. Yield was ~2.5 megatons. Barringer is a mile wide, and 570 feet deep.

 

Bottom line: Blowing a 5-mile wide crater on the moon with a weapon, thermonuclear or kinetic impactor, is highly unlikely.

[Moontanman]

I've been trying to explain to this blog group that this is an attempt to find water not use a kinetic energy weapon to devastate the moon but they don't listen. Really sad how these crazy conspiracy theories take on a life of their own. NASA is hiding the alien moon base and planning to destroy it with a kinetic energy weapon of vast power that will leave a 5 mile wide Crater (not to mention kill the aliens) PYRO HOW COULD YOU KEEP THIS STUFF FROM US! :lol: these people really seem to have a lot of serious anger toward NASA......

[Moontanman]

BTW this what they are all carping about...

 

NASA's New Moon Missions Seek Answers about Lunar Environment

[freeztar]

Fear is a powerful motivator. Sometimes it seems that humans like to believe in unreal things that scare them.

 

But that's just silly, right? :lol:

[Boerseun]

BTW this what they are all carping about...

 

NASA's New Moon Missions Seek Answers about Lunar Environment

 

Cool!

 

...but can you believe the comments on that NASA page?

 

Hell - I though we were out of the Stone Age already...

 

Slamming a kinetic impactor into the surface of the moon, especially in those dark craters where the sun never shines, is obviously the best, easiest, fastest and cheapest way to sample the top layer of soil. I will go so far as to say that a nuke-laden impactor will be even better, and is the best application of a nuclear device I can think of. Imagine what we could learn by spectroscopically analyzing the plume. Okay - a nuke might slightly alter the chemical composition of the plume, but what the hell - a globally visible fireworks show!

 

How is it, in a universe filled with Shoemaker-Levy's, people can be so upset about a teensy-weensy human-built impactor on the moon?

 

I tell ya, these bunny-huggers will be the end of me yet! UncleAl's envirowhiners have gone lunar! (which is the root of the word "looney", by the way...)

[UncleAl]

Water on the moon as a minable resource is remarkably awful. The moon started wholly molten, is undifferentiated, and cannot retain cometary surface additons. NASA's spew about "permanently shadowed craters" is Official Truth (propagandistic swill).

 

How much water would a "permanent moon base" require? A cubic meter (metric tonne) won't do it. An Olympic swimming pool (2500 m^3) slab of ice won't do it either. The Space Scuttle external fuel tank, LOX plus LH2 tankage, is 2050 m^3. Sum all of NASA's grandiose plans for moon living and launching... to obtain a flea fart.

[JohnMayer]

I tell ya, these bunny-huggers will be the end of me yet! UncleAl's envirowhiners have gone lunar! (which is the root of the word "looney", by the way...)

Nah, these hysterics are harmless. They’re going to create a prayer love shield around the moon, which should, according to my calculations, withstand eight direct hits by photon torpedoes before dropping to thirty percent.

 

It’s the Global Warming Deniers that will be the death of us, by muddying the waters and trying to make the public believe –*maybe some of the fuzzier-headed believe it themselves, along with Obama being a Kenyan, death panels and whatnot –*that there is actually a controversy, when, in actuality, the VAST majority of earth scientists accept that there is global warming and that man is pushing it past the tipping point. Every earth science accepts that, with climatologists agreement being at 97%, with the sole exception of... wait for it... petroleum geologists. And even that group is split on the question.

 

New to this site; I guess I’ll see now if this is a real science site or yet another site focusing on “political” science.

 

:hihi:

 

Yours truly,

John Mayer

[freeztar]

New to this site; I guess I’ll see now if this is a real science site or yet another site focusing on “political” science.

 

Welcome to Hypography!

 

We have many threads about global warming and climate science. Do a site search to find them. Lots to read.

[Donk]

It’s the Global Warming Deniers that will be the death of us, by muddying the waters ... I guess I’ll see now if this is a real science site or yet another site focusing on “political” science.

There are quite a few deniers around here, but it's not so easy for them to muddy the waters. Anyone who makes a claim has to be able to back it up, so a polite request for more detail on an assertion is usually enough to make them run for cover :hihi:

 

See, for example, this post, where I asked UncleAl to prove a link between El Niño and sunspot minima.