convince the US gov to run another space program and become an astronaut
go through astronaut school and become good enough friends with all of them that they’d do you a favour and bring something with them on the next trip
make it profitable to send things to the moon and then have everyone do it and just buy a ticket on one of those things—maybe building super tiny rockets is somehow cheaper? what’s the bottleneck for going to the moon?
15 convince Elon Musk to do a moon mission and bring your item
put a bird in a spacesuit and send it off
make the moon come to you (or at least bring it close enough it’s reachable by plane or so)
somehow increase the earth’s gravitational pull
by flying out spaceships, tying major big strings around it, and just dragging it back
by detonating a nuke on the other side of it so it gets enough force to fly toward the earth
20 just send something close enough to the moon that you can fire off your item, have it get into orbit, and then circle the moon for a lot of years until it finally lands
build some kind of huge accelerator around the circumference of the earth that could spin something around, gaining more momentum, and then shoot something out of itself and have it go all the way to the moon
just send a very tiny and easy thing—like a neutrino or something, might you be able to just shoot it all the way over there?
get NASA to send a 3d printer to the moon, build your thing over there
destroy the universe in all worlds where your thing does not get to the moon, and anthropically find yourself in a world with your thing on the moon
25 orchestrate a global 1984 campaign to switch names of the “Earth” and the “Moon”—voila, most things are at the “Moon”!
decide to send information, and use e.g. some kind of mega laser to just etch your message into the surface of the moon from a distance
helicopter w/ rocket for steering outside the atmosphere
do genetic engineering on an insect until their legs are mega strong enough to jump to the moon
forecast moon movements, aim something to appear in front of the moon, and wait for the moon to catch up with it
30 build a super-bouncy material
build some sort of uber strong material that withstands detonating a nuke, and then turn it into a long, thin cylinder, and use that to send a force propelling something towards the moon
use a super strong fan to send a beam of air
somehow expand the earth’s atmosphere in such a way that any flying thing could get close enough to the moon’s gravitational field
make the moon really hot and send a heat-seeking missile there
35 tall tower
elevator
swing around the sun and use it’s gravity to give yourself leverage
get shot out by a super volcano
attach it to a mega boomerang
40 send off a million copies of your thing in all different directions such that some of them would land on the moon
convince the UN to run a program for global peace by 1 million citizens to send an item to the moon on a mission organised jointly by the world’s major superpowers
convince a philanthropist to help you run a prize competition paying a big bounty to whichever team manages to get your item to the moon
genetically engineer trees to grow mega large and have the top be able to survive outside the atmosphere
intern at a space company and secretely place it on an upcoming moon probe
45 choose to send some sort of inspirational object (e.g. an olive branch) with high meme-worthiness, and make an inspiring movement such that children grow up wanting to send things to the moon, and soon as the next mission appears, whatever item you created will be the Schelling item to send
make your item be the flag of whichever country is most likely to next go to the moon
figure out if some substance is surprisingly common in the moon’s surface, and build a device that has some sort of magnetic-like attraction to that substance, and get it to drag its way there
paper plane made of steel
convince the world your particular item is super dangerous and has to be buried under ground on another planet
50 put your thing in a super solid and light box, that’s easy to get outside the atmosphere with some cheap basic rocket, and just steer its way to the moon using a remote control from earth—if necessary, have it be followed by a satellite to carry the signal
Switching the names of the earth and moon is hilarious!
I also love the supervolcano idea, even aside from humor; I had several that boiled down to hijacking natural phenomena or building artificial versions of them.
Here are my answers:
1 Slingshot
Rocket
Railgun
Heavy throw
5 Exercise your legs for a massive jump
jetpack while wearing astronaut suit
Airplane
Massive trampoline
10 Swing
Balancing swing
convince the US gov to run another space program and become an astronaut
go through astronaut school and become good enough friends with all of them that they’d do you a favour and bring something with them on the next trip
make it profitable to send things to the moon and then have everyone do it and just buy a ticket on one of those things—maybe building super tiny rockets is somehow cheaper? what’s the bottleneck for going to the moon?
15 convince Elon Musk to do a moon mission and bring your item
put a bird in a spacesuit and send it off
make the moon come to you (or at least bring it close enough it’s reachable by plane or so)
somehow increase the earth’s gravitational pull
by flying out spaceships, tying major big strings around it, and just dragging it back
by detonating a nuke on the other side of it so it gets enough force to fly toward the earth
20 just send something close enough to the moon that you can fire off your item, have it get into orbit, and then circle the moon for a lot of years until it finally lands
build some kind of huge accelerator around the circumference of the earth that could spin something around, gaining more momentum, and then shoot something out of itself and have it go all the way to the moon
just send a very tiny and easy thing—like a neutrino or something, might you be able to just shoot it all the way over there?
get NASA to send a 3d printer to the moon, build your thing over there
destroy the universe in all worlds where your thing does not get to the moon, and anthropically find yourself in a world with your thing on the moon
25 orchestrate a global 1984 campaign to switch names of the “Earth” and the “Moon”—voila, most things are at the “Moon”!
decide to send information, and use e.g. some kind of mega laser to just etch your message into the surface of the moon from a distance
helicopter w/ rocket for steering outside the atmosphere
do genetic engineering on an insect until their legs are mega strong enough to jump to the moon
forecast moon movements, aim something to appear in front of the moon, and wait for the moon to catch up with it
30 build a super-bouncy material
build some sort of uber strong material that withstands detonating a nuke, and then turn it into a long, thin cylinder, and use that to send a force propelling something towards the moon
use a super strong fan to send a beam of air
somehow expand the earth’s atmosphere in such a way that any flying thing could get close enough to the moon’s gravitational field
make the moon really hot and send a heat-seeking missile there
35 tall tower
elevator
swing around the sun and use it’s gravity to give yourself leverage
get shot out by a super volcano
attach it to a mega boomerang
40 send off a million copies of your thing in all different directions such that some of them would land on the moon
convince the UN to run a program for global peace by 1 million citizens to send an item to the moon on a mission organised jointly by the world’s major superpowers
convince a philanthropist to help you run a prize competition paying a big bounty to whichever team manages to get your item to the moon
genetically engineer trees to grow mega large and have the top be able to survive outside the atmosphere
intern at a space company and secretely place it on an upcoming moon probe
45 choose to send some sort of inspirational object (e.g. an olive branch) with high meme-worthiness, and make an inspiring movement such that children grow up wanting to send things to the moon, and soon as the next mission appears, whatever item you created will be the Schelling item to send
make your item be the flag of whichever country is most likely to next go to the moon
figure out if some substance is surprisingly common in the moon’s surface, and build a device that has some sort of magnetic-like attraction to that substance, and get it to drag its way there
paper plane made of steel
convince the world your particular item is super dangerous and has to be buried under ground on another planet
50 put your thing in a super solid and light box, that’s easy to get outside the atmosphere with some cheap basic rocket, and just steer its way to the moon using a remote control from earth—if necessary, have it be followed by a satellite to carry the signal
Love it.#28 is my favorite. Would make a great XKCD what if, seeing as every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction.
Switching the names of the earth and moon is hilarious!
I also love the supervolcano idea, even aside from humor; I had several that boiled down to hijacking natural phenomena or building artificial versions of them.
:)
Also, friendly admin reminder to put things in spoiler tags!
Inspired!
I’m very entertained by the amount of items our lists converged on
#24 made me laugh