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Strap some big rockets onto the ISS and somehow gently land it on the moon?
by gushie 9y ago
Strap some big rockets onto the ISS and somehow gently land it on the moon?
- idlewords 9y agoThe delta-v needed to go from low earth orbit to the Moon's surface is about half of what it took to launch all the components into orbit to begin with. That's a lot of rockets to strap on, and then you'll need additional rockets to move those rockets... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Earth–Moon_space—high_thrust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Earth–Moon_spac...]
- mrfusion 9y agoYou can use ion propulsion and power it with the existing solar panels. It might take a while but you can go anywhere you want.
- gnode 9y agoYou can't. As soon as you're below orbital velocity at the moon (or any other solid body), you're going to have to slow down quickly, or you'll just collide with it at near orbital velocity. No atmosphere on the moon either, so it'd have to be done with rockets.