1st Post / Moon Question

[Professor_Pickles]

Hi guys and gals, this is my first post.

I often have questions about space and the potential thereof, but never have anyone to ask, so I finally decided to find a message board. I am, by no means, an expert or even an amateur.

Here's my question I just thought of...

There's an article today on the front page about a collapsible greenhouse that could be used to grow crops on the Moon. Would a colony on the moon affect how the tides operate? I guess the real question is, how much can we mess with the Moon before it affects life on Earth? I know there have been ideas thrown around about mining on the Moon as well.

Thanks!

 

[crazyeddie]

Welcome to Space.Com!

I can't conceive of anything that we could do to the moon that could potentially influence the tides on Earth. That would require either adding or removing vast amounts of mass. Perhaps that could be accomplished over a very long timeframe if we had almost god-like engineering capabilities, but certainly nothing we could do in the foreseeable future will have an impact.

 

[kg]

How about a large impact such as the one that created Mare Imbrium? Would such a event effect the earth other than maybe pelting us with some debris?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Still inconsequential as far as the moon's mass is concerened.

 

[a_lost_packet_]

Hi guys and gals, this is my first post.

I often have questions about space and the potential thereof, but never have anyone to ask, so I finally decided to find a message board. I am, by no means, an expert or even an amateur.

Welcome to SDC!

Here's my question I just thought of...

There's an article today on the front page about a collapsible greenhouse that could be used to grow crops on the Moon. Would a colony on the moon affect how the tides operate? I guess the real question is, how much can we mess with the Moon before it affects life on Earth? I know there have been ideas thrown around about mining on the Moon as well.

Thanks!

The Moon is big. A good approximation of its mass would be 7.3477 × 10[super]22[/super] kg In fact, your question reveals part of the logic behind an answer - The Moon is so large it actually helps to affect tides on Earth. That's.. big. But, how big it actually is needs to be put in context in order to be able to understand it, right?

There are approximately 6.5 billion people on Earth. The average weight is about 65kg per person. (The mean weight of males + females.) So, for the entirety of the population of Earth, the total biomass of the human species would be approximately 422.5 billion kilograms. That's 4.225 x 10[super]11[/super] kg. All the people on the planet isn't even a credible fraction of the mass of the moon. (5.750099 x10 [super]-12[/super] All those decimal places add up... Someone can check my maths for me if they want.. I'm always rusty.)

Mass of the Moon =
73,477,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
Mass of all the People on Earth =
422,500,000,000,000 kg

If we moved everyone to the Moon, I think it is very safe to say we would probably not have any effect on its gravitational effect on Earth.

How much can we mess with it? Well, someone would have to do some heavier lifting than I can and figure out how much mass change it would take for the Moon's effect to deviate within an acceptable significance. The formulae are out there, if someone wants to take a stab at it.