Ok, so I had this notion the other day about terraforming the moon and a friend I discussed this with suggested I should ask you if this is possible. So here goes:

One of the great scientific questions these days seems to be based around how we can get a human colony proper outside of the confines of planet earth. This achievement will help to safe guard the future of humanity against a great cataclismic event on Earth whipping us all out.

So I thought, the moon seems a logical starting place - nice and near if not for any other reason. I starting thinking how could we get an atmosphere on the moon. Some reports state that some water has been found on the moon but I figure we cant go banking on that. I wondered where else could we get a huge mass of water from? Not earth, at least not with current technologies. Then it hit me... there are plenty of huge masses of water flying round the solarsystem that could be used. One such mass is Halley's Comet of which its next perihelion is predicted to be approx 28 July 2061 (plenty of time to iron out the uncertainties of this theory).

So now that we have dispensed with the background, I can ask my questions:

Assuming that we successfully adjusted the orbit of Halley's Comet so that it did hit the moon, and assuming that the resulting impact did generate enough energy to turn the entire water content to Gas releasing the Oxygen and CO2 that would be required to create an atmosphere (perhaps the impact could also generate some spin on the moon to give it days and nights), would the moon be capable of holding this atmosphere within its own magnetic field at a high enough pressure for humans to survive without the need for breathing / pressure equiptment?

My questions isnt so much about whether Halley's Comet could be used to achieve this but more so as to whether the moon would be capable of supporting the resulting atmosphere that is created or whether we could modify the moon in some way so it could.

Thanks for reading and looking forward to hearing your thoughts on my theory.

Aside from bone and muscle differences, which have already been covered.

For example, someone who grows up without being spun around at 400m/s as the world spins; would they feel as if they were spinning when they set down or entered orbit?

The power of a vacuum is very obvious. Suction pads can defeat the earths gravity and lift a person up off the ground. So why does the vacuum of space not suck the air molecules away from earth, when the vacuum force is far greater than the earths gravitational pull? Am i overlooking something?

I understand that on earth we feel the heat of the Sun because it radiates light to earth which then gets trapped within our atmosphere and gives out heat.  Space, being a vaccum, would contain no heat as there is no matter to conduct the heat of the Sun, so how close could you get to the sun before you would feel any heat from it?  Also would the sun not be able to radiate heat in the form of light to human skin in the same way as it radiates heat to the earth?

Many Thanks

James Stretton (Colchester)