September 15, 2018: Illuminated Site of the Week: You Spin Me Wrong 'Round, Baby, Wro

[RoboAdmin]

September 15, 2018: Illuminated Site of the Week: You Spin Me Wrong 'Round, Baby, Wrong 'Round

Read this article on the Illuminator.

[Tom H.]

Just in case, I would make sure everyone in the U.S. marches due East at the exact same time the thousand rockets are ignited.

[RogerBW]

Checking the calculations:

A single Atlas booster produces about 150,000lb thrust (Wikipedia) or about 650 kN. So a thousand of them produce 650 MN.

Treat the Earth as a uniform sphere. Its moment of inertia is about 9.7e+37 kg m^2.

If we can put all the engines on the equator such that they don't interfere with each other (the best case), the torque is about 4.1e+15 Nm.

Divide torque by moment of inertia and we get an angular acceleration of 4.3e-23 radian / s^2.

So if you applied that force for a full day, the change in the angular position of the Earth from what you'd expect would be 3.2e-13 radians. At the equator, the total change in distance travelled would be 0.13mm or about 1/2000 of an inch.

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

. . . the total change in distance travelled would be 0.13mm or about 1/2000 of an inch.

If I'm really lucky, that just may be enough to shift me into the hex where the exposed flesh burns drop to second degree.