13. How would we travel to the Moon? (A K2S Question)

From The Space Library

We would most likely travel to low Earth orbit (LEO) with a chemical rocket. Once in orbit we would either dock with a space station and transfer to an outbound vehicle headed to EML-1, or we could do what's called a trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn to take us directly out to lunar orbit. From EML-1 we can get to anywhere on the Moon's surface at any time. Going to the Moon by way of a LEO station and EML-1 would take about a week—the same length of time it used to take aircraft to travel across the Pacific Ocean—but we could go anywhere on the Moon. Traveling from a LEO orbit to a LLO with a TLI and then down to the Moon's surface would take about three days. With this method destinations tend to be limited to near the lunar equator because of orbital geometries.

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Answer provided by Thomas Matula, Ph.D. & Kenneth J. Murphy

Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer

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