People ask how long it takes to travel to the moon, and this article aims to answer this question. Also, we want to have a little fun with this article and see how long it takes to travel to the moon in other modes of transport if it was profitable.
It takes around 4 hours to travel to the moon. It took Apollo 11, the first-ever spacecraft to land on the moon 4 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes. The spacecraft traveled a total of 240,000 miles (386,400 kilometers), which means they traveled at approximately 2335 MPH (1043 km/s).
The final successful moon landing in 1972 took Apollo 17 3 days, 20 hours, 21 minutes, a little faster than the 4 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes it took the first-ever successful moon landing, Apollo 11 in 1969. so they have knocked a little time off over the 3 years.
The US is pushing again to land a man on the moon; they also say they want to land the moon’s first woman, which would be excellent. Will they do it faster than what has gone before us? It will undoubtedly be exciting to see.
Now that’s all great but let us have some fun and see how long it would take to get to the moon with other modes of transport.
How Long Does It Take to Travel to the Moon by Car?
We will work out our trip to the moon by using the most sold car in the US, the Toyota Camry, with almost 337,000 sales in 2019. The Toyota Camry has a fuel consumption of 5.7 L/100km of Highway miles.
So, we have our car, and we have our fuel consumption. We now need to decide the speed that we travel at and with speed limits varying across the US; let us go with 70 mph (115 km/h).
The Avg. gas price is $2.187 per gallon, from here; we can now work out the time it will take us, how much gas we will use, and how much it will cost.
It will take 142.85 days to travel the 240,000 miles (386,400 kilometers) to the moon by car traveling at 70 mph (115 km/h). A trip that would require 13,679.9 liters of fuel, which amounts to a fuel cost of $29,918.03.
For this to happen, we will need cars to drive vertically, and gas stations in the sky lets carry on the silliness and see some other modes of transport.
How Long Does It Take to Travel to the Moon by Bus?
Want to take some friends with you to the moon you? Pack you and your friend onto a bus for a trip to the moon. The maximum seating capacity of a standard school bus is 72 Passengers so that we can pack many friends on board.
The top speed of most buses is 50 mph (80 km/h), but the average is 13 mph (20 km/h) with pickups, but we will just be packing on and going so top speed all the way.
With average fuel consumption of 39 L/100 km, we can now work out how long and how much it will cost us and the time it will take.
It will take 200 days to travel the 240,000 miles (386,400 kilometers) to the moon by bus traveling at 50 mph (80 km/h). A trip will require 93,599.6 liters of fuel, which amounts to a fuel cost of $204,702.34.
How cool would it be to pack a load of friends on a bus and drive to the moon? With 72 friends, you will have some fun, but you will all need to chip in $2,843.09 if you are splitting the bill.
How Long Does It Take to Travel to the Moon by Fighter Jet?
Let us look at how long it would take to travel to the moon in the most iconic fighter jet in service, the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle.
With a maximum speed of 1,665 mph (2,698 km/h), we will get there a lot faster than a car that I’m sure. The fighter jet burns an incredible amount of gas at 23,000 gallons per hour; and fuel consumption of 863.51 L/100km.
Traveling at 1,665 mph, it would take 6 days to get to the moon in a McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle Fighter Jet. This trip will require 2,072,415.3 liters of fuel, which amounts to a fuel cost of $4,532,372.25
An awful lot faster in a fighter jet to get to the moon but an eye-watering amount of money to get you to space if it was possible.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed my article about traveling to the moon and received the answer to your question how long does it take to travel to the Moon?.
If you had the option, then it would have to be a spacecraft to get to the moon fast. Lunar space missions are hopefully going to become regular again to discover more about our closest neighbor.
Fuel is a considerable cost of any space mission, and the same would be said if you want to travel by car or fighter jet if possible. The car and jet fighter was a little fun that I hope you enjoyed.
