Submitted by Independent-Choice-4 t3_zy9lu2 in space
daikatana t1_j24rs1e wrote
There are a few problems with that. The first thing being throwing something toward the Earth won't mean it impacts Earth. This is not how orbits work. In order to get from the moon to the Earth, you have to throw it in the opposite direction from the moon's velocity.
But ultimately that velocity is going to be very high. The moon orbits the Earth at about 3,600km/h and you'd have to throw that hammer at a good percentage of that velocity in order to lower the hammer's lowest point in its orbit so that it would hit the Earth. This is just something orders of magnitude beyond what a human being can do.
Edit: If you could do what you're suggesting then we'd already be mining the moon. The biggest problem with mining something like the moon is getting fuel to return the material to Earth. If all it took were a human-scale toss to return to Earth then we'd be hurling minerals our way like there's no tomorrow.
billcraig7 t1_j250jvw wrote
You don't necessarily need fuel just energy. A rail gun type system could theoretically do it. I am not really sure what the Moon has that the Earth needs. We have plenty of iron, silicon, aluminum, oxygen, ect... We really don't have a need for He3 yet. In some far future SciFi time it might be interesting to get material that was not at the bottom of such a deep gravity well and thick atmosphere into deep space.
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