# Could colonizing Moon dangerously affect its gravity? Tags: the-moon, gravity - Score: 19 - Views: 12092 - Answers: 2 - Answered: yes - Asked by: Petr Peller (357 rep) - Asked: 2019-01-15 - Site: space ## Question If we colonized Moon it would mean we are moving matter from Earth to Moon. Since Moon is much smaller than Earth could these changes somehow affect its trajectory/movement to the point we could notice? How much material would we have to move to the Moon to cause some kind of disaster? ## Answers ### Answer by OrangeWombat (score: 33 [ACCEPTED]) No, there would be no measurable effect. But we can consider two things: force and mass. Let's imagine we planned very poorly, and always landed our ferry craft in the same Earth-moon orientation (so that by landing, the moon was always pushed "away" from its current direction of motion). The gravitational force between the Earth and moon (the force keeping it in its circular orbit) is roughly 2x10^20 Newtons. The force of a single "ferry" landing on the moon can be estimated... say it is Space Shuttle sized (100,000 kg), and it just lands vertically on the moon. Impact is about 100ms in duration, and change of speed