Magical thinking

I guess it's not surprising.

Some people commenting on the WDEF story about the highway 64 rockslide seem to seriously think the government's bombarding the moon caused the rockslide.

Of course, folks who live around there know better. As one local firefighter said, "It's pretty common to get rocks coming down, but it's the size and magnitude of this one. We had one three or four years ago that shut it down for, I guess, about a month." (Quote and photo Chattagnooga Times-Free Press)

But it's disheartening to see people leaping to magical thinking like this. Seismic events are pretty well understood, especially when mixed with heavy rain. The I-40 rockslide that happened last month is even worse: 40-50 feet high and hundreds of yards long, it will take months to clear (back in 1997 one took three).

Hitting the moon with a rocket doesn't cause rockslides on Earth. Driving a road through mountains in a temperate rain forest in an seismicly active region does.