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Quick question on getting to the moon
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Space Station Commander ![]() ![]()
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 8:47 am
Posts: 521 Location: Science Park, Cambridge, UK ![]() |
The Apollo shots orbited around the earth a few times I believe before transferring to the moon orbit. My question is - do you need to have orbital speed to get to the moon? Can you not (e.g. like armadillo) just fly straight up at a relatively low speed, but keep thrusting, and eventual impact the moon? If you wanted to soft land I guess you would need to match the moon orbital velocity (1.03km/s), but I would think a hard landing would be a good first effort.
James |
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Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 4:01 am
Posts: 766 Location: New Zealand ![]() |
You have to gain escape energy. If you do it slowly you encounter huge losses from gravity. The faster you go, the easier it is.
Once you get to a certain point, the Moons gravity becomes the dominant force and you start to fall towards the moon. If the moon wasn't there, you woul either enter a highly elliptical orbit (probably intercepting the surface of the Earth) or eventually reach the point where escape velocity is very small. Or something... _________________ What goes up better doggone well stay up! - Morgan Gravitronics, Company Slogan. |
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Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 4:21 pm
Posts: 74 Location: Baltimore, MD ![]() |
You generally would go around once because it's much easier to target that way. LRO/LCROSS did that. And you need to launch east to take advantage of the boost in speed you get from the earth's rotation.
_________________ Emory Stagmer LCROSS FSW Lead Engineer Bass/12string/windsynth for Ezekiel's Wheel "We can lick gravity, but the paperwork is overwhelming" -- Werner Von Braun "It's all fun and games until the potato chips get loose." (said of the ISS by Gizmodo on space.com) "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A journey of a hundred thousand miles begins with lots of flames, noise and smoke!" -- Emory Stagmer |
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