Flying to the Moon
Flying to the Moon
If you follows the suggestion of Francis Godwin in 1638 and harnesses some swans to a chair and directs them toward the Moon, you might or might not reach it. If the swans always travel toward the current position of the Moon, at constant speed, then the swans will fail to reach it unless their speed is at least as great as that of the Moon. In this Demonstration, the basic unit is 1 lunar distance and the swans start at the surface of the Earth, whose radius is 0.0167. The Moon is assumed to travel in a circle, with an orbital period (with respect to the fixed stars, not the Sun) of 27.3 days. In the event of failure, the swans continue to orbit around the dashed red path.