If the moon is traveling 2,288 MPH with no atmosphere, how were we able to land on it?

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The explanations of the moon rotating while always keeping one side facing earth are still perplexing to me, but I hadn’t thought about how fast it’s actually orbiting us. I know the Apollo rockets traveled 24,000 MPH, but how were the astronauts able to safely land the lunar module on a body moving so fast? The lunar module wouldn’t have been able to slowly descend to the surface, it would have to race to catch it. There’s no air resistance to make astronauts or moon dust fly off, but wouldn’t there still be an insane amount of g-force at such high speeds?

In: Physics

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Anonymous 0 Comments

G-force isn’t about speed, it’s about how quickly your velocity is changing. Speed isn’t absolute, it’s just how fast the distance between two things is changing. If you move at the same speed as the Moon, in the same direction, you can land as if the Moon were standing still—because in your frame of reference, it *is* standing still.

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