Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevorW
Whoa nice to think 50 years later and they are achieving the same thing as the Apollo missions  |
Trev,
Thanks
Not quite the achievements of Apollo
The comment regarding Apollo 17 was in relation to the orbital distance from Earth.
Since the end of Apollo in 1972 , all manned low earth orbital missions eg: Skylab, Soyuz , Space Shuttle, ISS and so on only reached altitudes of less than 500km ( the majority around 250km )
This Space X Polaris Dawn mission will reach a maximum altitude of 1400km ( 3 or 4 times the distance of any previous missions post Apollo ) Apollo did the same but kept going beyond 1400km all the way to the moon approx 385,000km away and approx another 385,000km to get back home.
Not quite sure if Polaris Dawn will be affected by the Van Allen radiation belts at maximum altitude ?
Hope that puts things into perspective
Cheers
Martin