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Moon Express Signs Launch Contract For Possible First Private Lunar Landing
MarkWhittington writes: According to a story in Space.com, Moon Express, one of the leading contestants in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, has made a giant leap toward its goal of being the first private group to land on the moon. The company has signed a contract with Rocket Lab, a new launch company based in New Zealand, for five launches of its upcoming Electron rocket. The first two launches will take place in 2017 and will be attempts to land the MX-1 lander on the lunar surface in time to win the prize by the current deadline by the end of that year.
But New Zealand is on the underside of the Earth, so they have to use magnets to hold themselves to the ground. You just remove the magnets from the rocket, and it falls out into space.
....what? "falls" into space?
Yes. Try this simple experiment: Put a globe on your desk. Hold a coin or other dense object against the south pole with your finger. Now let go. What happens? I falls *away* from the globe. That doesn't happen in the northern hemisphere, unless you flip the globe over, and there is no way to flip the entire earth. Of course, the south pole is the ideal launch point, but it is cold and logistically difficult. So New Zealand is about as good as you are going to get.
You need to reach escape velocity
Yes, of course. But you need to learn to use gravity instead of fighting it. We already do this with gravity assist off other planets, so there is no reason we can't do it with the earth as well.