With the right equiptment ,could you build a staiway or an escallator to the moon?

Question

walking to the moon.

Answer 1

The moon is 238,856 miles away from the Earth and when you consider that there would be around 2,000 steps for each of those miles, that would mean there would be 477,712,000 steps to the moon.

Say an escalator went at a swift ten miles an hour. It would take you ten hours to go just 100 miles. Three and a half days to go about 800 miles and you'd have just left the atmosphere by cosmic standards.

Then you have the logistical nightmare of building it and maintaining it. Keeping passengers safe in gale force winds. The need to be airtight because after about three miles, the air seriously starts to thin until you reach 60 miles when you run out of atmosphere altogether and then you have the problem of weightlessness.

I don't think a staircase or escalator would be feasible - ever. However, they are exploring ideas for a lift that can join on to a space station in a geosynchronous orbit.

Another way of getting things into space is by shooting them out of a space cannon.

Answer 2

1. A space colony big enough for every person who is willing to move there permanently. This would include an observation dome with a permanent view of the Earth. There would also be field trips to see the lunar landing sites from a safe distance (not to disturb history). 2. Some gigantic telescopes. These would benefit from the lack of atmosphere and the slow movement of the moon. 3. A tunnel. I'd dig all the way to the center so we can learn more about what the moon is made of and how it formed. I'm hoping to find a natural cave on the way down. 4. A really long linear accelerator to send stuff to Mars and other places.

Answer 3

A "skyhook" elevator from the surface of the earth to a geostationary point 22,300 miles above the equator is theoretically possible, if most of the mass is orbiting at that level. It would hover above the same spot on the earth since its orbital period would be the same as the earth's rotational period of one day.

This would not work for the moon, though, because the moon's orbital period is 29+ days, and if you built an elevator between the two bodies (240,000 miles long, by the way) the earth would spin around underneath it as it scraped along the equator!

Besides that, the moon's orbit is not a perfect circle exactly above earth's equator, so our end of this elevator would actually swing back and forth and cause severe damage to the whole world before it collapsed from its own instability - causing even more damage.

Answer 4

No. Due to the fact that both the earth and the moon have their own seperate orbits (the earth orbits the sun and the moon orbits the earth) there would be no place to anchor it. The location of the moon in relation to the earth is constantly changing, therefore ruining any chance of a solid structure connecting the 2. A more logical answer would to build an elevator that goes NEARLY to the moon (at the point where the moon is closest to the earth) and then a taxi service the rest of the way.

Answer 5

Not walking, the physics for stairs and escalators won't permit it. Besides; don't forget things like running out of air before you get really started, getting into sub-zero cold, hard radiation, etc.
An elevator--yeh, maybe. Go on the net and look up " "stationary satellite", "space elevator", and "Arthur C. Clarke". Mr. Clarke wrote (among a lot of other things) "2001;A Space Odessey". He first proposed earth satellites before we even had rockets to launch them, and the "Space Elevator" when it sounded silly. Now we have the necessary materials and engineering to do it and people are seriuosly looking at the possibility. michael

Answer 6

A tower to space would have to bear its own weight, and resist sideways forces. To go 20 miles up would be hard enough, 200000 miles would be 10 thousand times as impossible.

On the other hand, there have been ideas for space elevators going to geostationary satellites, and the physics for these is much more reasonable. The required materials do not at present exist however - there aren't cables that would be light and strong enough.

Answer 7

I think most people must think the moon just stands still in the sky, which is shown to be nonsense just by simple, everyday observation.

But I think it was Arthur C Clark, the famous sci-fi writer, who put forward the notion that you could feasibly build an elevator that took you up to space (100 kms up).

But to even consider trying to get your elevator to keep up with a moving target like the moon is beyond even considering for sci-fi.

Answer 8

No. First of all you'd have to walk 250,000 miles and since both the earth and the moon rotate and the moon orbits the earth, you couldn't do it

Answer 9

the earth and the moon both rotate, so it seems like it would break in half after a few minutes or hours

Answer 10

as the moon rotates around the earth it would be impossible