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Could the earth be used as a catapult to launch the moon into space/?

Say humans needed a new home someday and astronomers find a planet in space that could house us, would it be possible to staple the human race to the moon for a time, then sling it into space?

I read some stuff on a site that said should the moon circle the earth faster, it would leave orbit of the earth.

5 Answers

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  • John W
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    Why would we need a planet or a moon to live on? We could build space habitats such as O'Neill Cylinders, Bernal Spheres, Stanford Torus's and Hollowed Asteroids in space. The zero-g environment helps with the construction of large structures, there's no planetary gravity well to launch against to leave the habitat, no atmospheric re-entry to arrive at the habitat, there's reliable solar power, there's access to the resources of asteroids, comets and moons, and a 1 g artificial gravity is possible through rotation. The environment could be very Earth like. If the need should arise, these habitats could easily be converted to generation spaceships to leave the solar system but the asteroid belt has enough resources to support a trillion people in first world comfort.

    The Moon is leaving Earth's orbit as the tidal forces transfers the energy of Earth's rotation into the Moon's kinetic energy but it takes a lot of energy to move something as large as the Moon and even with the massive energy of the Earth's rotation, it would take longer for the Moon to leave Earth then it would for our Sun to become a red giant and swallow both the Earth and the Moon or at least scorch them very badly.

  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    While THAT is true, why would we ever want the moon to leave Earth? The gravitational pull of the moon is partially responsible for life on Earth, as it is almost completely responsible for our weather, let alone our tides. Getting rid of the moon would be a VERY bad idea.

    Acetek must be in 8th grade.

  • If astronomers find a habitable planet, they would first scrutinize everything. Experiment what will happen if humans are transported there. To answer your question, NOPE! Maybe that's possible, but if we take into consideration the risk, why can't we just use any spaceship. Plus, we won't live Earth unless it is going to die which is billion of years from now.

    Source(s): My Brain
  • 8 years ago

    This is a ridiculous suggestion on a number of levels. The stuff you read relies on tidal torque, which is a natural process, there really wouldn't be a way to speed this up. Worse, it would take tens, if not hundreds of years to actually reach another planet, even the closest, this way. The moon would also have to travel far from any sources of warmth and heat, like the sun, so we'd have to come up with a way to generate these independently on the moon itself.

  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    Also, life kinda grew to rely on the moon's influence. Without it pretty much everything here would die.

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