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showersttoday at 7:07 PM2 repliesview on HN

"Space" is 100km. The moon at its closest is about 350,000km.

So the jump from the former to the latter is... significant.


Replies

zamadatixtoday at 7:45 PM

Distance is usually the wrong measure in space. Something like delta-v will give you a much better scaling as once you manage to get something to orbit the rest is actually a lot closer than it would seem on the ground.

Not to say the effort somehow becomes peanuts, cheap, or easy... but the jump in delta-v needed to go from "100 km vertical ascent" to "hit the moon 350,000 km away" is more like a ~6-7x increase than a 3,500x one. If the moon were instead 700,000 km away the factor would still be ~6-7x.

Cool site for delta-v estimates https://deltavmap.github.io/

show 1 reply
hermitcrabtoday at 7:23 PM

And you need a serious amount of money, effort and expertise to each 100km with a rocket.