For a fluther gathering on the moon, if we launch at the right time of day when the moon is closest to us, how much energy would we need and could someone whip up a rocket in their garage to take us there (theoretically)?
Asked by
zenele (
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August 14th, 2010
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27 Answers
No fuel needed.
Dr J just informed me that he knows a secret cave in the gulf that leads directly to the moon. Bring warm clothes and a keg of beer. I will bring chips and a torch to wam up the cheese surface for nachos.
Theoretically, you would need a much bigger garage than I have. :-)
But I would be willing to bet that just as space tourism in near Earth orbit is coming on stream today, the Moon will have a hotel spa and Earth tourists in the not too distant future.
I don’t know how to calculate something like that. but I can look at the earth from the window of my moon hotel. Guess what? Planet earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do.
(Bowie, D.)
Ground control to Major @ETpro ?
I’m being followed by a moon shadow, moon shadow..
This is ET Pro to ground con-trol,
I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in the most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today.
Hey, this is good stuff!
Four, three, two, one;
Earth below us,
drifting, falling.
Floating weightless,
coming, coming home.
@Trillian Is that a little Peter Schilling I hear? Nice!
@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities, Thank you, yes, and we don’t like what they did to the song for that wretched commercial. I also have Chris DeBurgh, Planet P Project, Crowded House, Spandau Ballet, Big Country…
Oh, it’s only a paper moon, sailing over a cardboard sea.
Chris de Burgh???
Oh right – A Spaceman came travelling on his ship from afar…
Sounds like an awful lot of money, work and energy to me. What do you say if we just spike the kool-aid with some very good clean acid? We can visit Dr. Timothy Leary and Jerry Garcia on our way to the moon and beyond!
See ya…...Gary/wtf
Must… resist… figuring .. it…. ou-
Ok. Let’s talk the bare minimum and then scale up from there. Earth’s escape velocity is 11.2 km/sec Figure all the energy is kinetic. So the energy required to lift one of us up there is ½ mV^2 . Assuming 70 kg mass that comes to 4.39×10^9 kg-m^2/s^2 = 4.39×10^9 N-m. (This ignores all the air, water, protection etc. I’m figuring just a body.)
How much fuel is that? For fun let’s talk gasoline. 1 US gallon contains 110,000 BTU or 1.16×10^8 Nm Dividing, we get 37.8 gallons of fuel which weighs 110 kg. So that means we need something better than gasoline.
Nukes?
Then we need fuel to lift the fuel and the fuel to lift the fuel that is lifting the fuel…
Using gravity well theory the gw of the moon is 288km/5478km -or 1/19.02 of earth so we only need 37.8/19.02 = about 2 gallons equivalent to come back to earth, plus the fuel… plus the fuel… , etc.
I think we need something like this
Jerusalem is a much easier location.
I am such a tool.
@zenele : Love how you snuck this question into meta…
Forgive me, @zenele – It was 2am.
@worriedguy, I think my brain just exploded. Can we use that energy as fuel?
@Seek_Kolinahr I’m a little embarrassed that I actually spent the time to figure it out.
I did it two ways: kinetic energy and gravity well and got similar answers.
I don’t think people here realized I was not kidding. Those numbers are correct if you ignore wind resistance.
It is probably some sign of an OCD variant. Figuritoutitis.
@worriedguy
It’s a better condition than mine. I see that many numbers – regardless of what’s being done with them – and my head short-circuits.
@Seek_Kolinahr And still better than mine. Too… many… words… I… go.. to… next… post.
Hmmm – reminds me to be Kirk again for a while.
@zenele How’s this?:
For a 70 kg, 154 pound person it takes 4.39×10^9 N-m*. of energy to reach the moon. Equivalent to the energy content of 37.8 gallons of gasoline.
*Ignoring spaceship mass, fuel mass, and wind resistance.
Read the caveats above for more detail
This makes my head meat hurt.
@worriedguy I always wondered where you got your handle. Now I know. :-)
Well done. See ya all on the moon.
@ETpro I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.
@Trillian One of my favorite Rock albums. I wouldn’t miss it on a bet. :-)
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