Moon Landing: How Much Thrust Did the Lem Need to Achieve Orbit?

[chuffmonkey]

Hello readers,

My name is Mungo and i am making a television series about conspiracies, which is to be narrated by Tom Baker (The 4th Doctor... which actually depends on if you count Peter Cushing from his 1965 Daleks film, which many people do not do, despite the fact that they have no problems accepting Paul McGann, who by the same token only ever did one feature length episode).

The pilot episode covered the "death" of James Paul McCartney following a car crash on November 9th 1966, that saw clues being put out on the five albums from Sgt. Pepper to Abbey Road.

Episode two covers the "moon landings" of the late 60's / early 70's, and having covered the usual points of varying directional shadows from a single light source, crosses on pictures, flags waving in the solar breeze and so on, i would like to tackle a few of the lesser documented, technical issues, and therefore require input from patrons of this forum.

My first question is;

If the moons gravity is one sixth the gravity of earth, how much thrust would the Lem have needed to achieve orbit, in order to dock, and then return to earth?

I would have thought that a rocket one sixth the size of the rocket used at the Earth launch, however, from NASA footage, the Lem merely pooped out a one time only small explosion, followed by some small burners, which to me would not be sufficient.Anyone...?

 

[Evo]

So you support conspiracy theories?

 

[Travis_King]

"In before report and deletion" but "common sense" is, in this case, ridiculous. What you are talking about is, quite literally, rocket science. There is no common sense about it.

You should focus on other conspiracy theories, you obviously have no idea about anything that goes into landing on, and returning from, the moon. Please do not spread ridiculous and misleading informaiton.

 

[chuffmonkey]

I would not say that i support conspiracy theories, as with C.F.C.T (Conspiracy Fact Conspiracy Theory), i put just as much effort into debunking the theories as i put into proving them.

Point at hand is that millions of people have far too much time on their hands, which is why theories have such large followings.

New World Order... a conspiracy, or foolish people arriving very late to the party? Going back 5,000 or so years to Egypt, there is nothing new about rich people controlling the poor masses is there.

Aside from which, i only ever use information that already exists, in the form of archive stills and video / film footage.

 

[chuffmonkey]

"In before report and deletion" but "common sense" is, in this case, ridiculous. What you are talking about is, quite literally, rocket science. There is no common sense about it.

You should focus on other conspiracy theories, you obviously have no idea about anything that goes into landing on, and returning from, the moon. Please do not spread ridiculous and misleading informaiton.

Thank you for the heads up... common sense has been removed !

However, possibly logic... would dictate that a one sixth gravity would require one sixth the thrust perhaps?

Again, i am a noob here.

 

[Nugatory]

However, possibly logic... would dictate that a one sixth gravity would require one sixth the thrust perhaps?

Rockets can be counterintuitive, especially in gravity. The tricky part is that most of the early fuel burn is used not to accelerate the payload but to accelerate the fuel that will be burned later to further accelerate the payload. Google for "Tsiolkovsky rocket equation" and that will get you started on the math.

Another good thing to know is that the energy required to lift an object from the surface of a planet to completely escape from its gravity is the same as the energy required to move the object a distance of one planetary radius against a force equal to the surface gravity. The moon's surface gravity is 1/6 that of earth, but also the moon's radius is about 1/4 that of the earth, so it only takes about 4% as much energy to lift a given mass out of the moon's gravity well than out of the earth's.

 

[zoobyshoe]

 

[chuffmonkey]

My favorite piece of footage.

Did NASA have an outside broadcast crew on the moon? only the technology wasn't around to do what this video shows 40 years ago.

Manual zoom out prior to panning upwards, as remote tracking was not possible, aside from being extravagant and risky in film terms.

It's too good, Hollywood good.

 

[Nugatory]

Thanks zoobyshoe... That reminded me of another "good to remember":

The Saturn 5 had to lift the command module, the lunar excursion module, and enough fuel to fly the command module to the moon and back, enter and then leave lunar orbit, and to land the lunar excursion module on the moon and bring it back up into lunar orbit.

The LEM at liftoff needed only to boost itself into lunar orbit.

 

[Evo]

I'm afraid I've let this go on too long. chuff, we are a mainstream science forum and we don't discuss conspiracy theories. But you did get your answer, no conspiracy.