Why can't we send something to the moon?

Question

I started a project in 2017 called `to-the-moon`: https://github.com/aklos/to-the-moonObviously, it's a joke. But I keep thinking, what if we could actually get a small propulsion device into Earth orbit? All it would need is a solar panel and a fart, and we could set it on a trajectory to collide with the moon. Even if it'd take 10 years to get there, it'd still be really cool.There are services that launch small satellites into orbit for a fee (usually something like $30k-$60k per 1kg payload).Why isn't this feasible?

PaulHoule · Accepted Answer

The moon is not far away in terms of meters but it is far away in terms of meters per second. It is easier to intercept a near earth asteroid than it is to land on the moon.
The Apollo-style mission where you land on the moon and return is particularly difficult. They were thinking circa 1970 that Apollo hardware could flyby Venus!
There is an old Bob Heinlein quote to the effect that getting from the Earth’s surface to LEO is most of the work and it is easy to get around once you are there but it is just not true. Making big changes to the orbit you are in takes a lot of fuel. Ion drives, solar sails, and such things spend forever fighting Earth’s gravity near LEO and are not really effective until you get far away.

thuccess129 · Answer

The ULA CEO shared information detailing the lowest energy path from Earth to Moon. It takes a long while as if ocean surface shipping is to express airfreight. With routine transport in volume, the unit cost of mass to reach the Moonbase should pattern after how science stations on Antarctica get their deliveries. The price tag for a Moobase was $6B in 1966 dollars.

nabla9 · Answer

You underestimate the difficulty. You need almost as much delta-v to get from LEO to moon than from the earth to LEO.