Travel to the Moon: A Simulated Flight Past the Apollo Sites

01

The road to the Moon: distance and travel time

On average the Moon is about 384,400 km from Earth (238,900 miles); its distance varies from about 363,300 km at the closest point of its orbit to 405,500 km at the farthest. That gap is wide enough to line up about 30 Earth-sized planets, yet light covers it in just 1.3 seconds.

average distance from Earth

384,400 km

the fastest Apollo trip, Apollo 8

just under 3 days

for light, or a radio call, to make the trip

1.3 seconds

The Apollo missions took about three days to get there. Apollo 8, the fastest, needed just under three days to go from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. Modern missions that want to save fuel can take weeks or even months on slower, looping routes. The Moon is also slowly drifting away from us, by about 3.8 cm a year.

02

The flyby: about 1,000 km above the sunlit side

After launch and a short time in Earth orbit, the ship fires its engines and heads out. The Moon grows in the window for long minutes before the approach: the guide explains what it is made of while the ship lines up for the flyby.

Then you pass about 1,000 km above the side lit by the Sun, close enough to see crater rims, mountain ranges and the dark plains, with Earth hanging in the black sky behind. The Moon is where it really is on the day you fly, and so is the line between lunar day and night.

03

The six Apollo landing sites, marked on the surface

Apollo 11 and the first landing

On July 20, 1969, the lunar module Eagle set down in the Sea of Tranquility, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon. Their landing site is the first marker you pass.

The other five sites

Real coordinates for the markers

Each marker sits at the official latitude and longitude of the lunar module landing site published by NASA, so it appears exactly where it should on the surface below. The modules themselves are far too small to see from 1,000 km; NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, flying much lower, has photographed the descent stages and the astronauts' tracks.

04

Craters, maria and light: what to look for

• Craters of every size, some billions of years old. With no air, no water and no weather, almost nothing wears them away.
• The maria, the dark plains you can see from Earth with the naked eye, are ancient lava flows. Apollo 11 landed on one of them.
• The light. Near the line between day and night, long shadows make every crater rim stand out. In full sun the surface reaches about 127 °C; in darkness it drops to about −173 °C.

One more thing the guide will tell you: the far side of the Moon is not dark. It gets as much sunlight as the near side; we simply never see it from Earth, because the Moon turns once on its axis for every orbit.

05

Tour details: duration, price, seats

The Moon tour lasts about 10 minutes, from the GO/NO-GO poll to touchdown on the same launch pad, and costs €1.99 per seat. Rockets carry ten passengers and leave every ten minutes. The Moon is also the first stop of the Mars tour and the Grand Tour; the free trial flight heads for it and ends as it fills the window.