Yes, you can drop rocks on the Earth from the Moon at 11 km/s. You only have to launch them at 2.4 km/s from the Moon's surface.
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Replying to @LesserFrederick
A 1-ton rock launched from the Moon at lunar escape velocity will hit the Earth with an energy of ~15 tons of TNT.
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Replying to @LesserFrederick
It delivers about 4x the energy to the target as it takes to launch it. This is not an efficient weapon.
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Replying to @LesserFrederick
Refining 100kg of highly enriched uranium gives you a bomb 1000x as powerful.
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Replying to @LesserFrederick
is the rate of energy return constant with rock scale? Eg will a 2 ton rock hit with force of ~30 tons TNT, or . . . (?)
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Replying to @eigenrobot
Doesn't it have to be since the energy comes from Earth's gravity?
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Replying to @LesserFrederick
yeah that was my baseline but thought you might be considering some important nonlinearity from say atmosphere friction
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aced my ug engineering physics sequence but that was a decade ago, assume everyone on Twitter today more knowledgeable
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