mot1on

Well, this is my old thread from a long time ago. I am still fascinated with the idea of sending something to the moon. My latest idea is to use a high-altitude weather balloon as a launchpad for a small space sounding vehicle. In other words... Ascend to ~35km using weather balloon > launch vehicle into hohmann transfer orbit to the moon > retrorockets to slow the payload down before soft landing Doable? Cheers, Cody

Thank you for your responses. Here are a few more questions: What is [are] the equation(s) to determine speed, and distance if thrust and mass are known? (Let's say mass is 8 lbs and thrust is 215 Newtons.) What I'm getting at is, how can I determine how much thrust I will need to reach LEO (Low-Earth Orbit) which is approx. 1500 km above the Earth. I don't want to go too far and have my rocket run outside LEO, at the same time I do not want the craft to come hurtling back to the earth. (Given that it will have a parachute feature for such an occasion, nevertheless, what if that fails???) Also, as far as sending communication back to the Earth from the craft, how could I manage this? How does NASA do it? Could I use the internet? A private server? Something else? Cheers, Cody

Hello, I was doing some google searching regarding sending something into space / to the moon and I came across a now-closed thread on these boards. I know it's a far-fetched idea but I'm interested to know what you all think it would take to send something to the moon. Here are just a few questions I have: - How hot would the object become exiting our atmosphere? - How cold would the object become once in space? - How would you calculate the trajectory of the object to reach the moon? - How long would such a journey take? - How much power would you need in order to reach the moon? - Would you need constant power or could you tap into gravity? Those are just a few of my questions, of course. I think it's a good starting point, though. I am guessing that this venture would cost far more than I could afford so I'm primarily looking at this from a hypothetical standpoint. (Though there is no doubt, I would lo achieve such a feat!") Cheers, Cody