Passage 3

The gravitational pull of the Earth and moon is important to us as we attempt to conquer more and more of outer space. Here‘s why.

As a rocket leaves the Earth, the pull of the Earth on it becomes less and less as the rocket roars out into space. If you imagine a line between the Earth and the moon, there‘s a point somewhere along that line, nearer to the moon than to the Earth, at which the gravitational pull of both the Earth and the moon on an object is just about equal. An object placed on the moon side of that point would be drawn to the moon. An object placed on the Earth side of that point would be drawn to the Earth. Therefore, a rocket needs to be sent only to this "point of no return" in order to get it to the moon. The moon‘s gravity will pull it the rest of the way.

The return trip of the rocket to Earth is, in some ways, less of a problem. The Earth‘s gravitational field reaches far closer to the moon than does the moon‘s to Earth. Thus, it will be necessary to fire an Earthbound rocket only a few thousand miles away from the moon to reach a point where the rocket will drift to earth under the Earth‘s gravitational pull.

The problem of rocket travel is not so much concerned with getting the rocket into space as it is with guiding the rocket after it leaves the Earth‘s surface. Remember that the moon is constantly circling the Earth. A rocket fired at the moon and continuing in the direction in which it was fired would miss the moon by a wide margin and perhaps continue to drift out into space until "captured" in another planet‘s gravitational field. To reach the moon, a rocket must be fired toward the point where the moon will be when the rocket has traveled the required distance. This requires precise calculations of the speed and direction of the rocket and of the speed and direction of the moon.

For a rocket to arrive at a point where the moon‘s gravity will pull it the rest of the way, it must reach a speed called the velocity of escape. This speed is about 25,000 miles (about 40,200 kilometers) per hour. At a speed less than this, a rocket will merely circle the Earth is an orbit and eventually fall back to Earth.

This passage deals mainly with the gravitational pull of _____.

The velocity of escape is about _____.

It can be seen that if a rocket misses its target, it keeps on traveling through space until _____.

A rocket might miss its target by a"wide margin". This means the rocket missed the target _____.

Precise calculations are _____.