Why are such large numbers needed for force

Afaik (or understand)

Not quite. Momentum is how much an object Is moving. A gathered force - driven by values (speed, mass, gravity, etc).

Add impulse adds an arbitrary amount of force - once.
a different node needs to be called to add it continuously.

in essence, depending on where you use/see this value, it should be the equivalent of pushing something once with X amount of force.