I'll turn this thing around
August 14, 2009 8:02 AM   Subscribe

I was reading about this newly discovered planet with a retrograde orbit and decided that I'm bored with Earth going the same way as all the other planets. Help me change that!

It sounds like a near collision with another large body is the easiest way to do it, how can I make that happen? Of course, if you have a better way, I'm willing to listen.

I've got some savings and I'm willing to spend most of them on this. I live in Houston, so I reckon I can find any rocket parts I need pretty cheap. If I need to drill into a comet with something I know a great mechanical engineer who can build it, so I'm covered for personnel.

I'd obviously like to survive the event, which should be easy enough in my rocket, but I suppose it would be good if some of you did too. Is this likely, or are you all doomed?

I'd also like to replenish my savings afterwards. I imagine everyone's circadian rhythm will be off, so I'm going to buy up a large stock of melatonin, but how else can I profit from our new retrograde orbit?
posted by IanMorr to Science & Nature (1 answer total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Chatfilter. -- cortex

 
The earth has a lot of inertia; it's dense and it's moving very, very fast -- you'll have to make sure it doesn't fall into the sun while slowing down to turn around, either. So, let's say, Earth comes close to a black hole, gets thrown around it, then back into orbit around the sun, but in a reverse order - still 1AU away, no other planets get tossed its way, it just gets going backwards.

As for messing anyone up -- the earth's orbit around the sun won't affect circadian rhythm; that's a function of the earth's rotation. Personally, I don't think a retrograde orbit would change anything - seasons would still happen in the same order, day and night would still fall the same way, etc.

If, however, the Moon was wholly unaffected, that could affect tides -- the moon's motion in relation to the sun will be contrary to what it is now, so it could make some tide-related functions of nature behave quite differently.

Profit: Mars trips. Now, there's few windows when Mars is lined up right, because we come up behind it, overtake it, and we spend a long time opposite the sun from it. Going opposite directions means we would pass close to Mars more than twice as often, meaning more access to get to the red planet. Same with Venus, but less reason to send tourists there.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:13 AM on August 14, 2009


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