# How hard would it be to fly to the Moon?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-be-to-fly-to-the-moon/110061>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 21, 2002, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-be-to-fly-to-the-moon/110061 "2002-05-21T07:50:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2002, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-be-to-fly-to-the-moon/110061/21 "2002-05-22T05:39:39Z")

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Oh, yeah, **Patricinus Scriblerus** , I started a similar[thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102627) sometime back, and the answers I got are applicable here as well.

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**Author:** ![Motog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Motog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motog)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2002, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-be-to-fly-to-the-moon/110061/22 "2002-05-22T05:51:27Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by dtilque \*  
> \*\ ***Motog** , I assume you mean Lunar Prospector. …
> 
> \*\*

oops, yes I did.

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by dtilque \* As far as other missions, there’s summaries of all missions to the moon in the timeline [here](http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/history/timeline.htm). \*\*

Thanks for that. Very helpful.

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2002, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-be-to-fly-to-the-moon/110061/23 "2002-05-22T06:24:59Z")

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Anything that goes into space has gone through a long and expensiven qualification process. Space is not the place to be testing new stuff. Better have something which has been shownb to be reliable.

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**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2002, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-be-to-fly-to-the-moon/110061/24 "2002-05-22T12:29:23Z")

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I ment to post this but the board goes down early morning.

the reason it wouldn’t work is because you don’t have enough fuel or power. this is because the earth is spinning and you will be launched w/ this spin that would give you a initial velocity, add to that orbital effects and you will be thrusting in a way to stop that velocity BUT this will have the effect of slowing your orbital velocity down. Now you must fight earths gravity the entire way.

Also you would be headed on a crash corse w/ the moon (if you got that far).

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