It turns out, the moon that seems fairly close to the Earth is not so close after all. Going to the moon has always fascinated man from times immemorial From the time man started to get interested in the heaven above, the moon held a great fascination to him. Through the years, many stories and fairytales were written about our celestial neighbour. It also made an appearance in couplets about love. Lovers all across the world paid homage to the moon in every way they could. One of the deepest desires of man was to set his feet on the surface of the moon. And it finally happened in the year 1969, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The importance of this trip is paramount as it represents the apex of technological advancement and speed. But still, we are troubled by our curiosity as to how long would it take for us to reach the moon if our mode of conveyance is a bicycle, a minivan, or even a hot air balloon. Taking a minivan to the space So, let us assume that instead of taking a spacecraft, we take a road trip or we should say sky trip to the moon. How long would it take us to reach the moon’s surface? Astronomer Fred Hoyle explains that if the minivan goes by the speed of 60mph, then it would take about an hour to drive out of the earth’s atmosphere. But the real journey starts after that as you are in for a long long drive. To explain simply, if you drive around the earth ten times, would be the same time that would take for your minivan to reach the moon’s surface. The cycling trip and the hot air balloon experience And if you think of going there by the humble bicycle, then assume that the trip is going to be a lot longer than the minivan. After simple arithmetic, we understand that it would take almost six hours to leave the earth’s atmosphere and six times as long to get to the moon. But still, the time would vary on the speed of the cyclist. A hot air balloon would be visually spectacular. You floating away to the kingdom of the moon is indeed romantic. Regarding time, it would take the almost same time as cyclists would take to reach the moon. So, what do you think? How would you like to go to the moon?
