Richard Branson started his vision for Virgin Galactic’s future back in 2008. Once visitors have been sent into Earth orbit, it appears that space hotels might be built for extended stays in space. He went on to say that these ultimate hotels may be used to launch short “sight-seeing” visits to the Moon. The voyage to the Moon would have to be as quick as feasible if we were to make it routine enough to send visitors there. So, how long does it take to get from Earth to the Moon? That journey has been taken by both humans and robots multiple times. While some took an unusually long time, others were incredibly quick. Let’s take a look at the many objectives and ways to discover which one provides the most efficient and least time-consuming mode of transportation.
Many missions have reached lunar orbit and landed on the moon’s surface, but the methods used to get there vary greatly. We have several alternatives available to us when we journey to the Moon in the future, whether we employ a rocket to blast our way there or a delicate ion engine to steadily push our payload closer. For that purpose, I’ll run through the slowest to quickest trips to Earth’s natural satellite, which is 380,000 kilometres away.
Unmanned Missions
The Moon’s slowest mission was really one of the most sophisticated technology ever sent into orbit. The European Space Agency’s SMART-1 lunar probe was launched on September 27, 2003, and used a ground-breaking ion engine to reach the Moon. On November 11th, 2004, SMART-1 gently drifted off from the Earth, arriving at its target one year, one month, and two weeks later.
Although SMART-1 was sluggish, it was by far the most fuel-efficient. For the whole voyage, the craft utilized just 82 kg of xenon propellant (ending with a lunar impact in 2006). The SMART-1 mission is unusual in that it is by far the longest voyage to the Moon; the other missions reached lunar orbit in a couple of days. The Change-1 mission was launched from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center on October 24, 2007, but remained in Earth orbit until October 31, when it began its transit to the Moon, arriving in lunar orbit on November 5th. Using its rocket boosters, the mission took five days to cross the distance.
The Chang’e 2 orbiter, which launched on October 1st, 2010, and arrived in lunar orbit in 4 days and 16 hours, was the next mission. Chang’e 3 probe and lander was launched on December 1, 2013, at 17:30 UTC and arrived in Lunar orbit on December 6, 2013 at 9:53 UTC. It was therefore the quickest of the Chang’e missions, arriving at the Moon in 4 days, 12 hours, and 23 minutes before deploying its lander on the lunar surface.
The Yutu moon rover captured a mosaic of the Chang’e-3 moon lander and the lunar surface.
The first-ever unmanned journey to the Moon, though, was the quickest. The Soviet Luna 1 probe, which accomplished a flyby of the Moon in 1959, was the name of this mission. On January 2nd, this simple yet pioneering probe was launched, and on January 4th, it went by the Moon by a few thousand kilometres. It took only 36 hours to complete the journey, resulting in an average speed of 10,500 km/hr.
Manned Missions:
The Apollo flights, which were the only manned lunar expeditions, arrived on the Moon rather quickly. The Apollo 11 mission, in which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon, garnered the most attention. On July 16th, 1969, the astronauts were sent into orbit by a Saturn V multistage rocket from Kennedy Space Center.
They arrived in lunar orbit on July 19th, 1969, after only 51 hours and 49 minutes in space. On July 21st, about 109 hours and 42 minutes into the mission, the iconic “One little step for man…” speech would take occur. The Lunar Module took another 2 days, 22 hours, and 56 minutes to return to Earth after brushing off from the lunar surface. Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to the Moon, and it was also the fastest voyage to the Moon with the crew.
Fastest Mission to Date:
NASA’s New Horizons Pluto mission was by far the quickest mission to sail past the Moon. This mission got off to a fast start, with its Atlas V rocket propelling it to a top speed of 16.26 kilometres per second (58,536 kilometres per hour; 36,373 mph). It took only 8 hours and 35 minutes to get from Earth to the Moon at this speed. This probe, which was on its way to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt at the moment, was off to a great start. Although this is remarkable, it’s important to remember that New Horizons was not slowing down to approach lunar orbit (as was the case all of the manned and unmanned missions to the Moon mentioned above). Hence, it was probably still accelerating long after it had placed the Moon in its rearview mirror (assuming it had one).
