Space and Science BS Thread

No? The 'dark side' faces away from the earth since, like I said, the rotation matches the earth-moon orbital duration. It's not always in darkness, though - it gets about 14 days of sunlight (when we observe the new moon) every rotational period.

I'm not sure why you want it 'spinning faster'? Plus, the moon masses 7.34767309 × 10^22 kilograms , while say, Starship Stage 1 makes a total thrust of 74.4 ^ 10^7 N (the force to move one kg 1 m/s) .. so you'd need the thrust of ... um... 10^15 (so quadrillions) of Starships to move it one m/s faster (roughly).

 

See, that's why I ask the question here...I don't know how I coilda get a more concise answer via Google...thanks

As to why I'd want to have it spin faster?I don't.... I'm high...was just asking if there would be benefits.

 

As said, the moon does spin, it just happens to rotate at the same rate it revolves around the Earth, roughly every 27 days. This happens because it is tidally locked. Similarly to how the moon causes tides on the Earth, if the moon rotated any faster (or slower) it would experience internal tidal forces. Those tidal forces would heat up the inside of the moon, which would cause it to gradually slow down to (or speed up to) it's current rotation rate. It's believed this already happened - that the moon used to rotate much faster, but the tidal forces slowed it down to where it is now. I think a consequence of the moon being in this tidally-locked state is its orbit increases every so slightly every year.

As said above, it would take a TON of energy to rotate the moon any faster. If we did so, I think that might counteract (or maybe reverse?) the outward drift of the moon's orbit, but I'm not sure. Other things that could make it orbit faster include comet or meteor impacts that come in at an angle (instead of hitting the surface directly). But, anything that impacted the moon enough to spin it would send a shit ton of material into the space around the Earth, which would have drastic consequences for us tiny humans as a lot of it would come crashing back down to Earth.

 

I think the term is tidally locked.
And I’m drinking…
That said, the advantage I can think of off the top of my bottle would be adjusting the lunar day/night cycle to be closer to earth normal thus eliminating the long nights of intense cold that plague remote drone vehicles. It would also let us see the entire surface from earth. A downside might be that as is any installations set up facing earth are always in line of sight communication but given that dark side installations would need to bounce signals I think the overall benefit of having direct communication half the time would be better overall.

 

That happens from time to time here, too.. Cheers!

 

Y'all are forgetting that NASA said the moon is Hollow. That should make it much easier to spin!

 

SpaceX lifted Module 1 for OLIT2 at 7am this morning in Starbase.

Synchronize your watches!

 

Maybe Dahak doesn’t want to get dizzy. *










* David Weber “Armageddon Inheritance”

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3lR2GLgT0&t=19s

 

Speaking of dizzying has anyone heard any recent news of Spin Launch? Last I heard they were having difficulty locating a site for the orbital facility.

 

The streak is over. Another F9 second stage failure. Could delay Polaris and next rotation to ISS.

https://x.com/arstechnica/status/1811684573367193699?s=46

 

Man, that seemed like a quick 2 years. Expected to last 20, that a tenth ticked away already…
https://x.com/nasawebb/status/1811460725828669653?s=46
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope

 

https://x.com/bccarcounters/status/1811747339280765116?s=46

 

SpX looking to up Starship launches and landing to 25 at BC.
https://x.com/faanews/status/1811755300774379860?s=46

 

F9 grounded:
https://x.com/BCCarCounters/status/1811769572552310799
https://x.com/spaceoffshore/status/1811781711233187961?s=46
https://x.com/derekdotspace/status/1811806215833325964?s=46

Oxygen leak:
https://x.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1811807746875949089?s=46

 

Hopefully there’s enough data to determine the point of failure and what led up to it. Unlike automakers who need countless examples rubbed in their faces before reluctantly admitting a problem even exists.

 

https://x.com/sciguyspace/status/1811804069805109499?s=46

 

Hopefully it won’t be the 180 day shut down the last time this happened.

 

https://x.com/nasaspaceflight/status/1811807843005399134?s=46

 

SpaceX is taking some major steps to cut Nasa and all its contractors out of the equation. And Blue Origin is following the exact same recipe, setting themselves up for self-sustainment.