Driving to the moon.

If you were to drive to the moon going 60 miles per hours, how long will it take to reach the moon?

Kehoes23 said:

If you were to drive to the moon going 60 miles per hours, how long will it take to reach the moon?

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If the Earth and the Moon were in Static Positions, or if they were doing as usual???
And by Time to get there, do you mean arriving at 60MPH, because that sounds like a pretty rough Landing/Touchdown.

[video=youtube;uuqQ5GABCg8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuqQ5GABCg8#t=66[/video]

Should we consider gravity or orbital mechanics? If so, at which point are we cruising at 60 mph (and in what reference frame)?

3,981 hours, assuming you drove in a straight line towards the moon (238,900 miles). It is possible to launch a rocket straight up and get captured onto a crash course with the moon (launch X time and ascend straight up with an apogee of the orbit of the moon, timed so the moon will capture you while you are near apogee. You could therefore time when you start your drive (t- 4,166 hours) so you arrived at the moon.

If you consider orbital mechanics, this becomes a lot harder. A https://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit is the only way to transfer from one orbit (low earth orbit) to another (moon). Driving the length of a hohhmann transfer orbit to the moon will take longer than driving the approximate 238,900 miles to the moon.

Forever, you can't escape the Earth's gravity at 60 mph :tongue:


[YOUTUBE]KpOQKUAYZ0w[/YOUTUBE]

Kehoes23 said:

If you were to drive to the moon going 60 miles per hours, how long will it take to reach the moon?

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Planning a trip? Sounds like a nice destination. I don't think a highway to the moon is in any kind of planning stage. But for what's it worth, it seems like a really long drive to a desolate sphere.

SecretSquirrel said:

Forever, you can't escape the Earth's gravity at 60 mph :tongue:

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You could if you had propulsion to maintain a velocity of 60 mph. Escape velocity only applies to ballistic trajectories.

Nathan said:

You could if you had propulsion to maintain a velocity of 60 mph. Escape velocity only applies to ballistic trajectories.

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And which car would that be?

(There's always one who's more interested in finding fault than getting the joke.)

One that can get 238,000 miles to the tankfull.

About 10 years as the VW drives...

SecretSquirrel said:

Forever, you can't escape the Earth's gravity at 60 mph :tongue:


[YOUTUBE]KpOQKUAYZ0w[/YOUTUBE]

Click to expand...

That Video was pretty Creepy.oint:

There was an old Apple II program that we had at school that had how until you (walked, rode a bike, drove, plane, rocket, speed of light, etc) to many space destinations. I should see if there's an emulator around and see which calculation it is doing. (direct or transitional orbital).

this thread made me think of this; https://youtu.be/rYy_XJpI6uk?list=PL61F33EEF6C4E9FA1
Rex