The Moon, Earth’s closest celestial neighbor, sits at an average distance of 238,855 miles (384,400 km). At its nearest point (perigee), it’s about 225,623 miles (363,104 km) away, and at its farthest (apogee), it stretches to 252,088 miles (405,696 km). This vast distance naturally leads to the question: How Long Did It Take To Get To The Moon?
To put this distance into perspective, imagine driving to the Moon in a straight line at 100mph (160 kph). In this scenario, the journey would take approximately 99 days. If you decided to walk instead, at a pace of 3.7 mph (6 kph), you’d be trekking for a staggering 2,669 days, or about 7.3 years!
However, space missions, both crewed and robotic, don’t travel at constant speeds like cars or pedestrians. The actual time it takes a spacecraft to reach the Moon varies significantly. Generally, a lunar mission averages about three days to reach its destination. But this duration is influenced by several factors, including the chosen trajectory, the spacecraft’s propulsion system, the specific mission objectives, and whether it’s carrying a crew.
Crewed missions, historically, have tended to take a bit longer to reach the Moon compared to some robotic probes. Looking back at the Apollo program, the fastest crewed mission, Apollo 8, accomplished the journey in a swift 69 hours and 8 minutes. On the other end of the spectrum, the Apollo 17 mission took a longer 86 hours and 14 minutes to reach lunar orbit.
Earthrise as seen from Apollo 8, showcasing the Earth rising above the lunar horizon during the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon.
Before the 1980s, a common approach was the “direct transfer trajectory.” This faster route, while efficient in time, demanded more fuel. For example, Apollo 11, the historic mission that first landed humans on the Moon in 1969, took approximately 75 hours and 49 minutes to arrive. In more recent times, the Artemis 1 mission in 2022, an uncrewed test flight, took five days to reach the Moon, employing a different, more fuel-efficient trajectory.
Uncrewed missions exhibit even greater variability in travel time to the Moon. NASA’s New Horizons probe, en route to Pluto in 2006, zipped past the Moon in a mere 8 hours and 35 minutes. Conversely, the European Space Agency’s SMART-1 mission, utilizing ion propulsion for its lunar journey in 2004, took a considerably longer one year and six weeks to reach its lunar destination.
These longer durations for uncrewed missions are often intentional. By minimizing thruster usage and carefully aiming for a trajectory that utilizes the Moon’s gravity, missions can conserve fuel. This technique, known as gravity assist, involves aiming past the Moon and leveraging its gravitational pull to guide the spacecraft into lunar orbit. Furthermore, some missions also deploy secondary “piggyback” satellites to further optimize launch costs and mission objectives.
In conclusion, while the average lunar mission time is around three days, the answer to how long it takes to get to the moon is not a fixed number. It’s a dynamic figure influenced by mission type, trajectory choices, and propulsion technologies, showcasing the ingenuity and adaptability of space travel.
