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On 2001-11-23 12:58, Taks wrote:
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I'm willing to bet everything I own that the LMs are quite a bit less massive than 1/6th their fully fuel-loaded Saturn rockets, thus it takes less force to propel them into orbit, and thus less fuel. If the lander was 100 times less massive it would only take 1/100th as much fuel, and be approximately 1/100th in size just to leave Earth. (That is, were its engines powerful enough to do so.) One would think that it would require even less to liftoff from the Moon.
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Actually, it wouldn't it even take less than 1/100th as much fuel if the LM were 1/100th as massive? Rather, I don't think fuel and payload scale linearly with respect to each other as increasing payload, increases the amount of fuel required, which adds extra payload and so on. Perhaps a square relationship?
Not sure, but just a guess [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
Mark
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Granted, I simplified the problem quite a bit. Only if the LM had to put out as much thrust (i.e. opposing force) as the Saturn booster would it require 1/100th the fuel if it was 1/100th as massive. Suffices to say it most certainly does not - the poor thing would have been broken apart accelerating that fast.