How long to the moon by jumbo jet?

Answer 1

The moon is 384,403 km from the Earth. A Boeing 747-400 has a long range cruising speed of 907kph so the simple answer is about 424 hours or 17 days and 16 hours. Of course there are a few problems: # A jumbo jet can not fly straight up near the surface of the Earth and even when you get to the moon the Earth's gravity is still about 0.3% of that on the surface of the Earth which will slow the jumbo down. # A jet engine needs air so it stops in space. # There is no air resistance so less fuel is consumed but on the other hand there is no air to provide lift so the wings are pretty useless. # If we ignore the first 3 problems there remains the problem that a jet can not carry enough fuel. The maximum range of a 747-400-ER is 14,205km so it would need to land and refuel 28 times on the way, a lot of new airports to build...... More seriously, comparing a jumbo jet with a the real vehicle used to get people to the moon, the Saturn V rocket used by NASA for moon missions we see just how short of fuel and thrust a jumbo is for the job.

* Fuel - The Saturn V had a take off weight of 3,038,500kg to deliver just 47,000kg to Lunar orbit, less than 2% of takeoff weight and most of its take off weight was fuel. A 747-400 has a maximum fuel load of just 47% of minimum takeoff weight. * Thrust - The first stage of the Saturn V had a thrust of 7,648,000 lbf, a 747-400 with the best engines has a max thrust of only 63,300 lbf, just 0.8%. So, 17 days and 16 hours is kind of useful to picture how far away the moon is but a jumbo is never going to fly to the moon.