samosa's Deep Thought

[MrSamosa]

Friends, Comrades, Forumites... Mr Samosa has had a deep thought, and would like to share it with you.

Have you ever looked up at the sky at night, at the stars and the moon and all that garbage? It's all so far away..so far, that what we see in the sky has most likely changed by now, but light is moving too slow to keep up with that. Much too far for us to ever reach... But the moon, we know we've sent some people there (despite conspiracy claims that they were actors in Texas), and we've landed a few tincans on the surface. But still, too far for you or me or the average guy to take a trip there and see its terrain with our own, natural eyes... Then I remembered-- this is AMERICA. We are the strongest country in the world, why should WE have to go to the moon?? The moon should come to us. What if the moon WERE closer, though?

What if the moon were so close, that we had to duck when it came around? A low orbiting moon...imagine: "WATCH OUT, THE MOON IS COMING!!!!" "AHHHHHHHH.... <splat>" -- a tragic death by moon. We'd develop protective measures, of course. Moon forecasts, for example, warning us when the moon is coming to our town. There would be a massive "highway" along the moon's orbit, too, since nobody would dare build anything there. Imagine how much easier transportation could be...

Or, what if the moon were so close, that it touched the Earth's surface and just rolled along the continents, and into the oceans, and up again? An inexorable force, going about its orbit and crushing all in its way. Imagine people on a beach, relaxing, and suddenly...the water starts to change, and bubble and froth as a massive MOON rises from the ocean, and onto the beach!! "NOOOO!!! They just said High Tide, they didn't tell us the MOON was coming!!!! <squish>" Muahaha, another death by moon!

Or perhaps, it wouldn't be the moon we're familiar with at all. Just some little rock, blazing around the Earth a few feet above the surface, clipping people's heads off who get in the way... Oh, we could have so much fun with thoughts about a low-orbiting body, couldn't we??

So, friends, what do you think? :) Leave out the crap about friction and air resistance and stuff eh??? This is deep thinking, not Physics! ;)

[vulture]

I'd probably spoil your fun by throwing up a rather impact sensitive "object" when it passed over...:p

[James]

I suppose It would have to be made of amazinggly strong yet light stuff (rereads thread). I'd want some of that to build body armor and stuff.

[SpiffyVision]

That just made my day, I love your "watch out, the MOON is coming!", another death by moon! Muahahahaha!

If this were true, then I'd nuke it....

[Nicker]

Mmmm i cant wait, a big glob of cheese rollling around and around. cows would lose 1/2 their exports and cheese would be forever free, unless when the moon was in the ocean and it was salty cheese, i know cheese has some salt in it, but i dont like it with concertratred salt. Isent it true that we havent seen the dark side of the moon yet, aliens live thier, blah blah, i guess we would see the dark side of the moon if it came to us. Wouldent the tides be all fuckd up too, earthquakes too, what movie was that, the time machine, when the moon cracked up, wasent a pretty sight, cool tho.
Oh boy the possibliliys are endless...

[shooter3]

I gave up LSD 35 years ago, so I can't relate.

[frogfot]

Buahahahaha, and I was going to ask what he smokes..

[vulture]

I know what caused him to write that!! :eek:

Friends, Comrades, Forumites

Comrades, he said Comrades! He's a fucking leftist communist!! KILLLL! KILLL!!!

:rolleyes:

[MrSamosa]

"Comrades" as in those with a common interest, as in fellow amateur scientists/forumites... For the savvy reader, it was a bad play on Julius Caesar -- "Friends, Romans, countrymen!" I've found that "comrades" is the best term to describe fellow forumites and amateur chemists; though it does sound a bit red ... Comrade Vulture...;)

[nbk2000]

There's nothing wrong with a little creative thinking. Keeps the mind from fossilizing. I do it all the time to keep the juices flowing, as it were.

Like I'll imagine what would be different if people had tails and pouches like kangaroos. Chairs would have holes or slots for the tails, and women wouldn't need purses, things like that.

Though I don't require the use of mind altering drugs to get into this frame of mind. :p Wait...that might not be a good thing...;)

[zeocrash]

lol i guess the problem with the tides would be counterbalanced by the water displaced when the moon dunked itself in the ocean.

[Jacks Complete]

It would be rather interesting.

I can just see the transport industry becoming a real high-risk one, but cargo carrying would be really cheap, anywhere along the sides of the strip. 200 tonnes of cargo, two diameters that way, for £50, as long as you package it REALLY well (crush proof?!?!) and supply your own harpoon!

I for one would be diggin' a hole!

[Arkangel]

Well, I had an interesting experience a year or so ago. I was out camping with some friends and I have to admit that I'd had a few good pulls on a pipe, so was kiiiiinnnd of rolling with it.

Anyway, we're sat on the beach, and it was the clearest night I'd seen in years, bright, sharp stars and the moon looking so close that I could almost touch it.

And that's when it happened.

I stopped thinking of the moon as this two dimensional disc in the sky, and saw it as the globe it is. I could see so much of it, and from the shape, could work out where the sun was in relation to us all. I don't know what you guys imagine when you look up on the same moon as me - MY moon, but it's interesting to see it in that kind of perspective, I got a much stronger sense of our place in the solar system.

[T_Pyro]

If the axis of rotation of the low-orbit moon was fixed with respect to the earth, we'd have a bare ring all around the earth over which the moon would pass. If, however, the axis itself rotated, then the moon would have to pass over each and every point on the surface of the earth sooner or later. There'd be no Mt. Everest, no K2, no Apalachians, Rockies....

If the moon were to revolve about the earth without actually touching it, but at the same time keeping very close to the surface, its velocity would be "quite" high. Faster than the speed of sound, in fact. So the next time someone started to shout out, "Watch out! MOON!", he/she would be better off saving the trouble of doing so, for the moon would get the poor victim first anyhow. Also, accompanying the moon would be its giant sonic boom, which would devastate all man-made structures near its path.

Perhaps we'd regard it as part of the weather, ("And in the weather, Moon is to be expected at 3:30 A.M. GMT...") as well as a regular part of the main news ("Yesterday was a black day in the history of Iceland, as the Moon totally devastated Reykjavik...")

And if NASA claimed that they had landed a man on the moon, you'd know for a fact that they were lying.

The moon would also have affected our english language. "Once in a blue moon" would be once too often.

[Arkangel]

I like your style T-Pyro

But you do realise that if the moon WAS doing this kind of crazy shit, we'd have Bruce Willis in some kind of "craft" (it would hardly be a space craft) landing on it somewhere, burrowing into it's core and then detonating some kind of thermonuclear device that would trigger a cataclysmic seismic chain reaction leading to the whole thing shattering to dust.

To add to the suspense, he'd have a tiny window of time in which to do it, failing to hit the window would result in the moon COLLIDING with Earth and the destruction of mankind. The sneaky bad guy religious nut that believes in the apocalypse and is stowed away somewhere on board the craft would show his hand, having a little scrap with Bruce - possibly even killing/harassing his love interest and distracting Brucie long enough to make for a nailbiting bit of us looking at a digital countdown that bears no relation to ACTUAL time, Brucie covered in bruises and sweat, finally, desperately hitting the button. He'd be battered around a bit in the explosion, flung seemingly to his death, before being found unconscious (maybe dead, we don't know) in the wreckage of his craft somewhere in Nevada.

We'd then cut to him in a hospital ward, a few token bandages and his estranged wife and daughter with leukaemia running into the room and hugging him, just after he's punched some jumped up and clearly inadequate government official.

:rolleyes: