adrenalynn":2807oolf said:
An airplane on the moon outside of an artificial environment?
The moon's atmospheric is about 10[super]-11[/super] Torr. The best your vacuum cleaner could possibly hope for is around 500 Torr, assuming it's an industrial shopvac. Just for a little scale of why that could never work. Airplane's rely upon atmospheric pressure to lift them. Beyond that, the only engine that could work would be a rocket, where a rocket is differentiated by carrying its own oxidizer (versus conventional and jet engines that pressurize the atmosphere around them).
Further to Adrenalynn's correct post,
The total MASS of the lunar atmosphere is a paltry 25,000 KG, that's it. Mind you Mercury has even less, only 8,500 KG!!!!!!!
Lunar atmosphere = 2 x 10 [super]-12[/super] torr.
The vac Adrenalynn mentioned above is strong enough to rip the carpet off the floor with furniture on it in a normal home, so gives you some idea of how tenuous the lunar 'atmosphere' is. :lol: :lol:
So planes or any winged craft will not work there for lifting.
Andrew Brown.