Full G on the Moon or other small bodies?

On Jan 11, 2007, at 03:44 UTC, smartaspaper wrote:

> EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT, RESOURCES DWINDLING, DESTROYING ECOSYSTEM.
> THINKING IT IS TOO LATE FOR THIS PLANET TO BE HEALED SO LETS GET THE
> BEST OF THE BEST AND MOVE ON? ABANDONING MOTHER NATURE?

No, that's not it at all! Quite the opposite. Humanity is getting two
numerous (many would say, has ALREADY gotten too numerous) for Earth to
support without serious damage. So we have three choices:

1. Continue to wreck the Earth in order to support our teeming numbers;
eventually there will be no species left except us and the things we
eat (and the things that eat us).

2. Kill off large numbers of humans, or allow starvation and disease to
do it for us. (Or at the very least, suppress a large fraction of
humanity and keep them in poverty so that a few of us can live in
wealth and comfort.)

3. Obtain the resources and energy we need for everyone to enjoy a
modern standard of living from space, instead of from the Earth. This
is not abandoning the Earth; it's protecting it! We can't get that
much energy and material from the Earth without harming it irreparably.
But we can get it from out there, where both energy and other resources
are abundant, and there are no ecosystems at all apart from the ones
we'll build.

> I AM A GROWN WOMAN AGE 54.

Oops! I hope I didn't give offense. One of the problems with email is
that you have very little to go on when "speaking" with someone new,
and so it's hard to know what background to assume for smooth
communication.

> SO IF THERE IS GRAVITY ON THE MOON THEN WHY
> IN THE FILM THEY SHOWED AT 11:00P OF THE MOON WALK WAS THE FLAGS NOT
> HANGING DOWN?

The flag was supported by a rod at the top. Otherwise it would indeed
just hang like a limp rag, since there is no air on the Moon to make it
fly. So the support rod was good thinking by the NASA folks, I'd say.

> I AM NOT ABLE TO WALK AS THE ASTRONAUTS DID W/SUCH A
> BOUNCE. A DIFFERENT KIND OF GRAVITY?

Same kind, just a different amount, only 1/6th as strong. If you weigh
150 pounds here, you'd weigh only 25 pounds there. You could jump six
times higher there than you can on Earth -- jumping clear across a
basketball court and doing a slam-dunk would be a piece of cake. And
when something falls, it accelerates six times slower than it does on
Earth. That's why the astronauts had such a bouncy walk. But if there
were no gravity, they wouldn't be able to walk or bounce at all -- one
hop up, and they'd have just kept going up.

Here's another benefit of lower gravity you may not have heard about
yet. If you had a big room (like a tall gymnasium) in a Moon colony,
you could strap on wings and fly like a bird!

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...