Re:What If the Moon Orbited at the Same Height as the ISS?
by VLM on Monday May 19, 2014 @03:30PM
(#7769286)
1) Its interesting to contemplate a "death star" the size of the moon but of immensely lower density. Could be handy! All the cool aesthetics and applications with none of the planet killing tidal effects.
2) I think the alternative earth dwellers would have some interesting gravitational slingshot opportunities, given something that heavy and that low. Perhaps an interesting multigenerational mega-engineering project would be placing a giant spherical ball of lead in high-ish earth orbit for interplanetary vehicles to slingshot around, not necessarily moon size but a serious chunk of metal. Perhaps a large asteroid or two could be refined down to solid metal (to allow close approach to the center of mass)
3) The ham radio moon-bounce people would be excited to hear it'll take little more than a HT to bounce a VHF signal off the moon, although the multipath might make it impossible to do more than CW and the short orbital duration makes it nearly as annoying to operate as a low orbit satellite. None the less the effect on the ionosphere would be very interesting to look at / think about. Multipath in general might be a very serious problem for radio communication on a planet like this.
2) I think the alternative earth dwellers would have some interesting gravitational slingshot opportunities, given something that heavy and that low. Perhaps an interesting multigenerational mega-engineering project would be placing a giant spherical ball of lead in high-ish earth orbit for interplanetary vehicles to slingshot around, not necessarily moon size but a serious chunk of metal. Perhaps a large asteroid or two could be refined down to solid metal (to allow close approach to the center of mass)
3) The ham radio moon-bounce people would be excited to hear it'll take little more than a HT to bounce a VHF signal off the moon, although the multipath might make it impossible to do more than CW and the short orbital duration makes it nearly as annoying to operate as a low orbit satellite. None the less the effect on the ionosphere would be very interesting to look at / think about. Multipath in general might be a very serious problem for radio communication on a planet like this.