The Moon is just sitting there. You can see it. On a clear night, it looks like you could almost reach out and grab that glowing orb. But space is big. Like, mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly vast. When people ask how long to go to the moon, they usually expect a single number, like "three days."
Reality doesn't work like that.
The distance between Earth and our lunar neighbor fluctuates constantly because orbits aren't perfect circles. They’re "squashed" ovals or ellipses. At its closest (perigee), the Moon is about 225,623 miles away. At its farthest (apogee), it drifts out to 252,088 miles. That 26,000-mile difference is basically like driving around the entire Earth one extra time. So, your travel time depends heavily on the calendar and, more importantly, how much gas you’re willing to burn.
The Need for Speed (and Fuel)
If you want to get there fast, you need a lot of thrust. If you want to get there cheaply, you’re going to be waiting a long time.
Take the Apollo missions. These were the gold standard for human travel. Apollo 11 took 75 hours and 56 minutes to enter lunar orbit. That’s roughly three days. But NASA wasn't just trying to break records; they had to keep three guys alive in a tiny tin can. Oxygen, food, and water are heavy. The more "stuff" you bring, the slower you go, or the more fuel you need to haul. It's a brutal math problem known as the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation.
Basically, if you add weight, you need more fuel to move it. But fuel has weight too. So you need more fuel to move the fuel. It’s a vicious cycle that keeps most trips to the Moon in that three-to-four-day window for humans.
💡 You might also like: The iPhone 5c Release Date: What Most People Get Wrong
Breaking the Speed Records
New Horizons, the probe that eventually zoomed past Pluto, absolutely screamed past the Moon. It didn't stop, though. It just did a "flyby." Because it wasn't carrying humans or trying to slow down to land, it cleared the distance in a measly 8 hours and 35 minutes. Imagine that. You could start a shift at work, and by the time you're heading home for dinner, New Horizons would be waving at the craters.
Then you have the other extreme. The SMART-1 probe. This little European Space Agency craft used an ion engine. Think of it as a very gentle, very efficient "puff" of xenon gas. It’s the polar opposite of a giant fire-spewing rocket. Because it was so low-thrust, it took SMART-1 one year, one month, and two weeks to arrive.
One. Year.
You’d have to really like your podcasts to survive that commute.
How Long to Go to the Moon in the Artemis Era
We are going back. NASA’s Artemis program isn't just about sticking a flag in the dirt and leaving. It’s about staying. This changes the timing again. Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight, took about five days to reach the Moon. Why slower than Apollo? Because the trajectory was designed to test the Orion spacecraft’s systems and enter a "Distant Retrograde Orbit."
📖 Related: Doom on the MacBook Touch Bar: Why We Keep Porting 90s Games to Tiny OLED Strips
Future Artemis missions will likely hover around the three to six-day mark.
Engineers at NASA and SpaceX (with the Starship HLS) are looking at different parking spots in space. If we build the "Gateway"—a small space station orbiting the Moon—ships will dock there first. This adds a layer of logistics. You might get to the vicinity of the Moon in three days but spend another day or two syncing up your orbit with the station.
Gravity is the Real Pilot
You don't just point a rocket at the Moon and hit "Go." You’d miss.
The Moon is moving at 2,288 miles per hour. To get there, you have to aim for where the Moon will be in three days. This is called a Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI). You’re essentially throwing a ball at a moving target while standing on a merry-go-round.
- Low Earth Orbit (LEO): First, you spend about 10 minutes screaming uphill to get into orbit around Earth.
- The TLI Burn: You fire the engine again to break Earth's "gravity well."
- Coasting: This is the long part. You’re basically falling toward the Moon for three days.
- Lunar Orbit Insertion: You have to turn the ship around and fire the engines backward to slow down. If you don't, you'll just slingshot right past it into the void of deep space.
What Most People Get Wrong About Lunar Travel
There’s a common misconception that we can just keep making rockets bigger to make the trip shorter. While technically true, the physics of "slowing down" is the real bottleneck.
👉 See also: I Forgot My iPhone Passcode: How to Unlock iPhone Screen Lock Without Losing Your Mind
If you arrive at the Moon at 20,000 miles per hour, you need an insane amount of fuel to brake so you can land softly. If you don't bring that fuel, you're just a very expensive meteor hitting the lunar surface. This is why the three-day trip is the "sweet spot." It balances speed with the weight of the fuel needed to actually stop.
Real-World Examples of Recent Trips
- China’s Chang’e 5: This mission was a masterclass in efficiency. It took about 112 hours (roughly 4.5 days) to reach lunar orbit in 2020.
- India’s Chandrayaan-3: This was a fascinating one. To save money and fuel, they didn't use a massive rocket to blast straight there. Instead, they looped around Earth several times, using Earth's own gravity to "slingshot" the craft higher and higher until it reached the Moon. It took about a month to arrive, but it was incredibly cost-effective.
- SpaceX Starship: When Starship eventually carries humans, it might actually take a bit longer than Apollo because of its sheer size. It needs to perform on-orbit refueling, which is a whole different logistical hurdle.
The Human Factor
We also have to talk about the squishy things inside the rocket: us. Humans don't handle high G-forces well for long periods, and we don't handle radiation well either. The longer you spend in the "Van Allen Belts" (zones of radiation around Earth), the worse it is for your DNA.
So, engineers are always trying to find the "Goldilocks" path. Fast enough to minimize radiation exposure, but slow enough that the astronauts don't get turned into pancakes during acceleration or deceleration.
Actionable Insights for Future Lunar Observers
If you're tracking the next era of spaceflight, keep these specific points in mind:
- Watch the Rocket Type: If it’s a "Heavy Lift" vehicle like the SLS or Starship, expect a transit of 3–5 days. If it’s a small "CubeSat" or ion-drive probe, it could take months.
- Look at the Orbit: "Direct Ascent" is the old-school Apollo way (fast). "Ballistic Lunar Transfer" is the new-school way (slow but cheap).
- The Perigee Advantage: Launching when the Moon is at perigee (its closest point) saves thousands of miles, though orbital mechanics usually dictate launch windows more than raw distance does.
- The Landing Site Matters: Going to the Lunar South Pole (where the water ice is) often requires a more complex, slightly longer trajectory than landing at the equator.
The "how long" part is basically a sliding scale between your budget and your patience. As we move toward a permanent human presence on the Moon, we'll likely see "express" flights for crews and "slow-freight" lanes for supplies and building materials.
To stay updated on the specific transit times of upcoming missions, monitor the NASA Artemis "Launch Windows" documentation, which is updated frequently based on the relative positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. Observing the differences between the Artemis II (crewed) and Artemis III (landing) timelines will provide the best real-world data on how we currently balance speed and safety.