why does it take 4 days to get to the moon when it is only 250,000 miles away.?

Answer 1

Well, when you move at the rate of 2600 mph or more, you can get there in that time.

Answer 2

I'll try a very simple answer..

Other than the distance alone, it is the limitation of the technology we currently have to travel there. For instance, it would be much faster if we could 'have the pedal to the floor' the whole way, accelerating or holding a certain high speed the whole trip.

The problem with this is, it uses fuel, and currently our tanks and type of fuel cannot supply very long or even many times of intermittent constant acceleration. With the current technology, we would need to build huge holding tanks with enough fuel to continuously burn the entire way.

Also, slowing down is another problem. The amount of power put out to escape Earth's pull is enormous, but we would also need a huge amount of fuel - if we were travelling 'faster' to get there quicker - just to slow down so we didn't crash into the moon's surface.

When technology advances to the point that we can speed up our travel, safely, and slow down after the trip, safely. We will be able to cut down that time significantly!

Answer 3

It takes 4 days of straight driving to get across the US... and that is just over 3,000 miles... I'm sure traveling to the moon which is more than 8 times further would take quite a while... I'd say 4 days to get to the moon is a decent amount of time.

Answer 4

The rocket leaves Earth at 25,000 miles per hour. The rocket engine only fires for a few minutes to get up to that speed and then it coasts the rest of the way. As it coasts away from Earth, gravity slows it down. Within a few hours the speed is down to 10,000 miles an hour and by the time it gets near the Moon the speed is down to about 3,000 miles per hour.

Answer 5

"the distance form the earth to the moon is about 30 times the earth's diameter.

If you could fly to the Moon at a constant speed of 1000 kilometers per hour, which is the speed of a fast passenger jet, it would take sixteen days to get there. Apollo astronauts reached the Moon in less than four days even though they coasted "uphill" almost the entire distance. They got a fast start."

seems to answer that question pretty well.

Answer 6

I'm sure somebody will explain this better than me, but you don't fly in a straight line. The moon is circling the earth so you have to approach it by flying in a spiral motion. The total distance is Much more than 250,000 miles obviously.

Answer 7

You can only go so fast with our current rocket technology, and you don't want to go too fast, anyway -- you burn until you get outside of Earth's gravitational pull, and then just enough to get you to where the moon's gravity pulls you in. If you went faster, you'd burn more fuel getting up to speed, and then burn a whole lot more slowing down when you got there. Since you can only carry so much fuel with you, you have to conserve every chance you get, so if you can just get up to around 2,000 mph and let inertia take you the rest of the way, it saves a lot of fuel that you'll need to maneuver later.

Answer 8

We don't go to the moon in a straight line, "as the crow flies". The darn crow croaked long before we got there. Aside from the crow, did you ever go on a four day trip and not stop for gas, or to go "potty"?

Answer 9

ok, 250000 miles.....
in 4 days, that's 62500 miles per day
which averages out to 2604 miles per hour
which is about three quarters of a mile a SECOND....
yeah, ONLY a quarter of a million miles

Answer 10

Only 250,000 miles... that is a piece of cake...