It's been 18 years...

[kengr]

since the great disaster.

Nobody ever figured out what caused the runaway chain reaction in the waste dump on Lunar Farside. But it drove the Moon out of orbit.

Here on Earth the quakes and tidal changes had people's attention.

But now that we've recovered, we have to wonder at the fate of the people on Moonbase alpa.


For those who don't get it, September 13th, 1999 is when the Moon was "blasted out of orbit" in Space:1999
:-)

Comments

[freetrav]

Has anyone written any decent fanfic about what happened on Earth beginning with the Disaster?

[kengr]

Not that I know of. I haven't *looked* because the show was more atrocious than Lost in Space.

I just have the date marked on my calendar program as one of a number of "future" (some yet to happen, most already past) date from various fiction and TV/movie worlds.

Pretty sure I have the date the Jupiter II launched, when a certain suborbital shuttle disappeared, when Project Tick-Tock lost a couple of people, etc.

[siliconshaman]

Project Tick-Tock... Time Tunnel reference?

[siliconshaman]

You know.. doing the maths, I'm not sure if the Moon leaving Earth Orbit would actually create earthquakes and tidal waves.

Firstly, the moon wasn't 'blasted' free... IIRC it was more like a continuous burn, with the waste pits acting like rocket nozzles. There was a scene when the base personnel were all flattened by acceleration, and blacked out for several hours.

The moon is thus accelerating away from the earth, in an orbital transfer manoeuvre, but over about a day or more. So, although the Earth's motion will be slowed fractionally, it won't happen at a fast enough rate that non-liner localised deformation of the crust occurs. [aka, the earth doesn't wobble like a jelly].

What will be a significant problem is the lack of tides.

Obviously, the coastal regions will affected first, with inter-tidal species impacted by loss of habitat. Mangrove swaps will die due to the lack of regular inundation and silting up. Various wading birds will starve or have t seek new food sources as the sands between low & high tide won't be exposed. Some ports will become unusable by shipping due to the lack of high tide.

But eventually the oceans will stagnate and begin to die, as the lack of pelagic turn-over by the tides means the oxygen in the deep ocean column is used up, and isn't replenished. Lack of life in the pelagic deeps, means that upwelling columns of water no longer carry nutrients to the surface, which will starve the food chain. The oceans would eventually turn into scummy de-oxygenated pools of brine, with only simple forms of life managing to survive at the surface.

and without the oceans, land life slowly begins to suffocate due to a lack of photosynthesis and a build up of carbon dioxide.

[kengr]

Don't forget, there are *solar* tides as well. And they are of similar magnitude (at a rough guess, 1/2 to 1/3 as strong). So that won't be a major long term problem.

Also, turnover in the ocean (and other bodies of water is mostly driven by the fact that water hits maximum density at about 4 C. So water sinks in cold areas, flows through the ocean basins to the tropics and rises there. That's deep ocean circulation, seperate from surface things like the Gulf Stream.

But tides affect the *crust* of the earth (and the mantle). so I'd expect art least *some* quakes as things readjusted.

Also, don't forget that tides are an inverse *cube* law. Some tidal force varies as the inverse cube of the distance between the Earth and the Sun or Moon. And linearly with the distance from the center of the earth.

It's also an outward force from the center of the earth along the line connecting earth with the other body, but an *inward* force in the plane at right angles to that line (and one force is twice as strong as the other).

A lot of organisms are going to have problems with the Moon gone, because they've got life-cycles tied to the full moon (a lot of ocean species mate of lay eggs at the full or new moon).

When things settle down the (lower) high tides will be at solar noon and midnight and the low tides will be halfway between. Well, except for the effects of the shapes of coastlines. But at least they'll happen at the same time of day all the time.

Of course, the moon wouldn't have survived the thrust anyway. If the acceleration at moonbase alpha was 3 gees down (it'd actually have had to be a lot more than that fr them to pass out, more like 30+ gees!) then on the opposite side of the moon it'd be around 2.8 gees *up*. So everything loose would fall away from the surface, followed shortly thereafter by any rock that didn't have the structural strength to withstand 2.8 gees *away* from the surface of the moon.

You'd have between 3 and 2.8 gees at some angle to the surface as you moved away from the thrust source to the point 90 degrees around from it. at that point, you'd have 2.8 gees *sideways* to the surface.

and in between you'd have various angles of "up"

So the moon would pretty much fall apart. A point just about every serious SF fan was yelling at the TV when the episode aired.

Having the moon come apart that way would be a lot worse for the Earth because I bet a lot of the pieces would (sooner or later) impact Earth. Ouch.

So let's just accept the "magic" and have the moon leave in one piece and fairly quickly. :-)

[kengr]

Yup. Thoiugh it looks like I didn't add that to the calendar. But don't worry the 20th anniversary Robinsons etal leaving Earth is next month. :-)

[stickmaker]

First season theme! :-)