Could the Space Shuttle go to the moon?

I second the answer provided - it would be impossible (or nearly so) for the shuttle to land on the Moon's surface.

To begin with, the trajectory of the Moon would influence the gravity pull on the shuttle on approach. It would cause the shuttle to approach at faster and faster speeds; even with the use of retarding devices the shuttle itself would be too heavy to simply land on the Moon's soft surfaces and except to move. It would sink into the dust and remain incapacitated. Take off would be impossible after that, unless NASA is willing to waste a shuttle and prepare a little Lunar Module to leave the shuttle itself and return to Earth.

Armageddon is a horrible example for anything spacewise; it's a movie.

The shuttles on that film are not something we have yet, technologically. The shuttle may be able to withstand a trip to the Moon, but not a trip ON the Moon. There are various spots to land on the Moon (Maritas Tranquilitas, for one) but for landers with light padding and even lighter payloads. A huge shuttle would basically be like throwing a brand new BMW into a quicksand pile and expecting nothing to go wrong.

Space Shuttle To The Moon

This Site Might Help You.

RE:

Could the Space Shuttle go to the moon?

In the movie "Armageddon", the space shuttle is shown doing a sling-shot around the moon, to catch up with an asteroid. But the shuttle is primarily used to carry payloads into Earth orbit.

If needed, could the Space Shuttle go to the moon, or is this just a Hollywood fantasy?

The shuttle is not designed for travel to the moon, even if you carried extra fuel instead of cargo, the main thrusters are designed for the upper atmosphere and the nozzles do not work efficiently in the vacuum of space. It would be difficult to say if enough excess fuel could be carried to offset the design inefficiencies.

As it stands, the shuttle can only rendezvous with the Hubble telescope because the orbit for the telescope was chosen to be low enough for the shuttle to reach. Other space based telescopes that have cost less than a fifth that of the Hubble orbited much further out in order to be clear of the debris in low Earth orbit.

On this last trip, the concern was that should there be significant damage to the heat shield, they would not have been able to reach safe harbour at the space station because of the fuel expended to get to the Hubble. I think that had it been possible to put a large enough spare tank of gas in the cargo bay for this last trip, they would've.

No, there is not enough Delta V. The shuttle cannot and is not designed to travel through the atmosphere at the velocities required to reach escape velocity (25,000 Mph). The size of the booster is rather too small to carry the weight of the orbiter, and the drag coefficient is far too great, too. The orbiter (shuttle) could not land, and is not designed to land on the Moon. The orbiter needs an atmosphere and airflow to glide to earth. Also has not the fuel, nor the variable control rockets fitted to land or take off from the lunar surface, as did the Apollo Lunar Modules (LM's).

Kind regards

Dr Antony

No, shuttles are designed purely to go to and from low Earth orbit. They are physically incapable of going to the Moon without a lot more fuel, and even if they could get there they are not equipped to land. The shuttle is designed to land like a glider, using the Earth's atmosphere and its wings for control. With no atmosphere on the Moon the shuttle would have no way of slowing down to make a landing.

It's basically a Hollywood fantasy. They used the Space Shuttle because it's what people are familiar with. The Shuttle was never designed to leave low earth orbit. Breaking out of orbit takes about as much energy as you needed to get up there in the first place, so you'd need basically another external tank and set of boosters.

The Shuttle includes a lot of stuff (like wings) that's just dead weight and a waste of fuel to haul around outside Earth orbit. Plus, it's just much bigger and heavier overall than you'd need for a trip to the Moon. The reason is that it was designed to be a "space truck" to haul stuff up into orbit (and occasionally down). You don't need its cargo capacity for a lunar trip. Sort of like how you wouldn't take a Peterbilt on a cross-country trip if you didn't need to carry stuff; you'd drive a car instead.

no... The Space Shuttle is only designed to achieve Low Earth Orbit (such as going to the International Space Station or Hubble Space Telescope)

Absolutely not. It doesn't have enough "delta v" (change in velocity). The shuttle is used for lifting heavy payloads into low Earth orbit. The shuttle is far too heavy to make it to the Moon using only its standard propulsion. If it were set atop a much larger rocket, it would be possible, but no such rocket currently exists. Even so, it could only crash into the Moon. It could never land.

The movie Armageddon has so many technical flaws that NASA asks potential employees to find them all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_(1998_film...

Yes, it can go to the moon. It has the life support needed to support a crew there and back. It may need extra fuel to make sure it breaks the orbit of the moon when it's time to go and I doubt it could land without even more significant resources. The lunar modules were much, much lighter than the shuttle.