Came here to say this sounded like something he would write about. https://what-if.xkcd.com/
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You mean this?
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Thank you. I was hoping he’d also address the issue of the rockets- checking RAND’s math on how many needed, their exhaust and the even higher winds caused by them, etcetera.
So it looks like the book isn’t just a reprint of the online comic- I couldn’t find this question on what-if.xkcd.com, or my search skills aren’t all that great (daring anyone else to find it 
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How did we survive the cold war with people like whatever moron came up with that idea in a position of power?
BTW Jules Verne used the idea as a joke in his sequel to From the Earth to the Moon.
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The real reason this wouldn’t work is that the earth is flat and not spinning. Der.
As far as wondering how anyone else thought it would work, they must never seen that video of the legislator worked Guam might tip over because of overbuilding on one side of the island…
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This is one of the most ridiculous ideas that I have ever heard of.
But I have theory what might be behind it. The air force was very well funded in the 60’s due the nuclear scare by the USSR. Some of the money was likely earmarked to used externally. Maybe a group of people got an assignment to think up 100 out of the box ideas to avoid the nuclear strike and then hire consultants to find the good ones. Maybe this was the worst one?
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That would be the Rand Corporation (see below). No, this idea of staggering genius bears all the marks of something tossed to Rand by a high ranking officer who had gotten where he was via the Peter Principle, and whom nobody dared tell that he was a fool.
the Air Force quickly became the think tank’s main contractor, and RAND began consulting on everything from propeller turbines to missile defense. Before long, the organization was so flush with contracts that it had to hire hundreds of additional researchers to keep up… the institute secured a reputation as the place to dream up new ways to wage wars and keep enemies at bay.
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Whoever came up with the idea really doesn’t understand the notion of “scale.” From the moon you wouldn’t be able to see an array of a thousand rocket engines on the Earth’s surface, it’s like trying to move a tractor-trailer with the tiny electric motor from a toy car. [edit: or to be more accurate, a tractor trailer that is already moving in the opposite direction.]
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Your “theory of what might be behind it” shows that you’re WAY overthinking this. What’s behind it is the pure insanity of nuclear weapons to begin with. Since we, as people of earth, are apparently unable to get our shit together and rid ourselves of these monstrosities, then every single possible “solution” short of total abolition is consequently considered insane. And obviously this “slow the earth’s rotation” quackery fits that bill quite nicely.
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Aside from the very obvious insanity of this idea from the get-go, when the actual math is done and the results show that the possible power would be a tiny fraction of what is needed, and the necessary power would incinerate the Earth, why was it not dropped as a joke? Grasping the scale here is probably beyond the human imagination, but the math is pretty damned definitive. Of course, math and science are hard, so we just go with our gut, I guess?
You can use less rockets if you put them on top of a huge tower, to act like a lever (maybe ? can someone do the math ?).
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Give me one million billion rockets and 2.6 x 10^21 kilograms of propellant and I will move the Earth.
-Archimedes
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Did they take into account the earth’s molten core? They’d probably only need to slow the mantle, and then after the rockets are shut down, the still-spinning core would start the mantle spinning at the same speed again.
But the plate tectonics will probably complain quite loudly.
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In Dr. Strangelove it appears as the Bland corporation:
Muffley:
Dr. Strangelove, do we have anything like that in the works?
[Stains and Turgidson, who have been listening to Muffley and DeSadeski Stains’ station at the round table, slowly turn their heads in search of Strangelove.]
Strangelove:
(in wheelchair) A moment please, Mr. President. (stomps one foot on the tile floor, pushes back from the table and begins wheeling towards the discussion between Muffley and DeSadeski.) Under the authority granted me as director of weapons research and development, I commissioned last year a study of this project by the Bland corporation. Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent, for reasons which, at this moment, must be all too obvious.
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The Air Force and RAND. Our military-industrial complex hard at work, serving itself.
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…says Werner von Braun.
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