Re: what is orbital speed around the moon?

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 20:19:07 -0500, "Jim Oberg"
<joberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


<PP@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0oa1d3dg3gfdagcqog9of3iqhrmapmqosp@xxxxxxxxxx
earth orbit is around 17,000 MPH.

The moon is smaller with less gravity. Does this change the speed
much?

Yes indeed. A low-alltitude orbit of the Moon
takes about two hours. The math is left as an
exercise to the student (you). <grin>



Well, let's see....

The diameter is 2160 miles. Not sure exactly how low "low-altitude"
is, but one of the Apollos mentioned 50 or 60 miles, so that would add
another 100 miles to the diameter. Orbit lenght, then, would be pi
times dia., so that would be about 7100 miles. If we cover that
distance in about 2 hours, we're moving at about 3550 MPH.

well, that's not even close to 17,000.
.

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