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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Goddard Space Flight Center

Astrophysics Science Division | Sciences and Exploration

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Servicing Mission 3B: SM3B Discussion Board: General Discussion: Could the suttle land on the moon?

Entity

||||| Tuesday, March 05, 2002 - 05:22 pm

Could the shuttle land on the moon and come back safely?

Dave

||||| Tuesday, March 05, 2002 - 05:35 pm

The shuttle is not designed to leave earth's orbit. In fact the maximum altitude the shuttle can reach is only slightly higher than HST.

Edward Cheung

||||| Tuesday, March 05, 2002 - 05:53 pm

No. A few hundred miles is all she can do. The moon is about 240,000 miles. There is still plenty of gravational force that far out, it just looks like it is zero because we are 'falling' around the earth.