I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but I have got to respond to some of this nonsense.
Quote:
On 2001-11-15 10:07, JayUtah wrote:
I'm told this month's Mensa publication contains these hoax-related questions allegedly asked by Mensans.
From one person:
1. The tremendous height of the Saturn V launch vehicle was attributed to the amount of fuel needed to escape Earth's gravity. Given the fact that the moon's gravity is 1/6th that of the Earth, you'd need something 1/6th the height of the Saturn V to blast off from the moon. So how did the Eagle lift off?
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This is a total
non sequitur. The Saturn V is so big because it needs to send a huge amount of payload (its third stage and the command and lunar modules) to the moon. Even a rocket as small as a Delta is capable of giving its payload escape velocity.
The lunar module, on the other hand, only needs to deal with its upper stage and only needs to get that into lunar orbit, not out of lunar orbit.