From: alain245@videotron.ca   
      
   On May/30/2021 at 12:34, JF Mezei wrote :   
   > Was watching a documentary of when they discovered a monolith on the   
   > moon in the late 1990s.   
   >   
   > I a "moon bus" that travels at low altitude to span great distances   
   > possible?   
      
   I saw that documentary :-) a long time ago. But I don't remember the   
   moon bus.   
      
   > is the moon's gravity low enough that the fuel cost of "floating" above   
   > surface would not be that great?  (and allow greater horizontal speed   
   > and greater comfort than if traveling on wheels on ground)   
   >   
   > or would the only way to accomplish this to inrease horizontal velocity   
   > to near orbital speed at which point you're looking at cost of   
   > accelerating and decelerationg which would make travel between 2 points   
   > on Moon too expensive?   
      
   For long distances I think that going suborbital would be more practical   
   and probably even cheaper energy-wise. For shorter distances, the old   
   buggy on wheels would be better.   
      
   I don't think that for any distance it would make sense to build a ship   
   that would use rocket power to provide lift while moving horizontally.   
   Even if you only want to go a few kilometres away and what you have is a   
   rocket ship, not a wheeled vehicle, you would basically do a very short   
   suborbital flight instead staying close to the ground with the rocket   
   keeping you up.   
      
      
   Alain Fournier   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)