Re: 8 Reasons Why Going Back to the Moon Is Loony by MARGARET WERTHEIM
- From: Michael Gallagher <mikejoe7g@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 11:35:29 -0500
On 14 Jan 2006 10:47:10 -0800, "Brad Guth" <ieisbradguth@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>>Michael Gallagher
>>Or you're forgetting -- if I'm reading this right -- that the Saturn V
>>was a three stage rocket. You're right, if all there was were the
>>F-1s, they probably wouldn't have done the job. But you didn't have
>>just the F-1s: the five J2 engines in the second stage and the single
>>J2 engine in the third stage got it into orbit. Then the S-IVB stage
>>restarted to push it out to the Moon.
>But they didn't just drift away from the gravity of Earth .....
Nothing "drifted" anywhere, Brad. For one thing, Earth's gravity
extends a considerable distance away from Earth, theoretically to the
end of the Universe, but the inverse square law (
http://physics.about.com/od/gravity/ ) dictates it would be so weak
as to be not worth considering. But 250,000 miles away, it is still
strong enough to hold something in orbit, which is why there is a Moon
over our heads for you to argue we never landed on.
Basically, getting to the Moon requires you put your vehicle in a long
eliptical orbit around the Earth, an orbit which itersects the Moon's
orbit, and you time it so the Moon is at or near that point when you
get to it. To this end, the Apollo spacecraft left Earth orbit at
about 24,500 mph, just under escape velocity, and decellerated for
most of the way out. Then the Moon' gravity took over and they
settled into orbit.
So there's no "drifting" invloved, just plain old fashioned orbital
mechancis. If you believe the Space Shuttle is real and there are
satellites overhead, then you are witnessing orbital mechanics in
operation. And we used it to get to the Moon.
> .... With
>nearly 50t to pack along for the ride, and with the sort of speedy
>deployment obtained ....
The only place where deployment was "speedy" was in Ron Howard's film,
APOLLO 13. As much as I love it, he fudged some of the technical
detaisl and compressed the launch to show it in less time than it
actually happened. Separating from the S-IVB stage and docking with
the LEM took place after the spacecraft had been boosted from LEO.
> ..... is why I'm still thinking it would have been
>unlikely for the 4th stage (aka S-IVB).....
The S-IVB was the THIRD stage of the Saturn V. It was a three stage
rocket, not four.
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