Question

) Distance from Earth to Moon is about 2.39×10⁵ miles. Assuming that a spacecraft can take off from Earth, attain escape velocity (see part (C)) and directly get to the Moon and land, what would be the time taken for travel to the Moon? Apollo 11 astronauts reached Moon in 4 days, 6 hours and 45 minutes in July 1969. It is not really practical to go to Moon in one shot. One way is to get a craft to Earth orbit, then launch a smaller craft toward Moon and let it get to lunar orbit, and then have a module land in a suitable spot on the Moon such that it has the power to take off and dock back to the mother craft and then return to Earth orbit and to Earth. This is why it takes a long time to get there. We will return to this problem when we get to study Gravitation and Circular Motion.

Answer 1

• Distance between earth and moon
• Escape speed

Now time taken by the spacecraft is