How much force is required to destroy the moon?

[TheGamerPlayz]

How much force would be required the moon? Or how would I calculate this? Mind that the force would be delivered by a fist or a similarly shaped object.

[swansont]

It's not quite so simple as to give a number for the force, because it would depend on how long and through what displacement the force acted and over what area it was applied. Also how you want to destroy it. A small force acting over a long period of time could alter the orbit and make it crash into the earth. But it sounds like that's not what you want.

[elfmotat]

Really it depends on what you mean by "destroy the moon." If you make your question more specific then you'll recieve more specific answers.

[Janus]

Like has been said before, it depends upon what you mean by "destroy the Moon". So let's consider this: what would it take to completely pulverize the Moon is such a way that its remains continue to fly apart and never come back together again. To answer this we need to look at the energy needed rather than the force. The minimum energy needed to achieve this is equal to the gravitational binding energy of the Moon, which works out to some 1.24e 29 joules. One top of this you would need to apply the energy needed to overcome the molecular binding forces holding the Moon together. Then you would have to work out how to deliver this energy to theMoon so that all of it goes into destroying the Moon without being wasted.