[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The tidal bulge lags the rotation of the earth and has the effect of raising the level of the Moon’s orbit, which actually slows it down. The moon at 380,000 km orbital radius moves at about 1.0 km/sec. GPS satellites at about 23,000 km orbital radius, at about 3.8 km/sec.

The net tidal effect of the earth on the moon is a transfer of about one gigawatt - a billion joules per second - from earth’s rotation to the moon’s orbit.

The specific orbital energy, that is energy per unit mass, of a circular orbit is -μ/(2R), where μ is the main body orbital parameter, and R is the orbital radius. The negative sign means the two bodies are gravitationally bound. The specific potential energy of the orbit is -μ/R and the specific kinetic energy of a circular orbit is +μ/(2R). The -μ/(2R) is the sum of the two term. -μ/R + μ/(2R) = -μ/(2R). So, the moon is gaining altitude while losing speed.

[dayglored]

Thank you for the technical info (detailed explanation and corrections).

My poor ol’ brain is now absorbing it... :-)

[omni-scientist]

From this discussion, I've realized what is needed on the moon is thrusters. And probably some on Earth too to avoid those pesky leap seconds in Universal Time. From there we can go on to stop Continental Drift once an for all.

Elon are you listening?