[BC] A very interesting fact behind the Apollo Mission to the Moon

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

Correct! All of our Mars probes and the three landers used the dynamic of a near Earth orbit. The last did a gravitational assist by heading in towards the orbit of Venus and being sling-shot back around to a very close encounter with Earth for gravitational assist. The result was an seven month journey. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=25912

This is well within the time-frame that trained persons could be confined without undue stress. That "in towards the Sun" first kind of trajectory allows the crew to return home quickly should something go wrong or somebody get sick. Of course, to use that gravitational assist requires that the launch be carefully timed. I recall reading that the optimum window occurs only once every four years (although it is several weeks long).

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "PeterH" <peterh5322 at rattlebrain.com>

On Jul 20, 2009, at 2:52 PM, RichardBJohnson at comcast.net wrote:

> Establishing a permanent base on the moon is has no scientific  
> value (remember we have moon rocks and lots of moon dust) and  
> little strategic value (it's hard to do precise targeting from  
> there). If I'm going to pay for it, we get much more bang for the  
> buck by exploring Mars.

A trans-Mars injection from near Earth orbit would be much easier  
than a take-off from the Moon followed by a trans-Mars injection.