Moon Satellite

Can the moon have a moon or man made satellite? Is there enough gravity to support a satellite network?

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Off the top of my head I am sure that is the case.

The moon orbiter waited while the moon lander was on the surface.
They probably couldn't be too massive or too far from the moon center that would catch them in the gravity well of the Earth, but I would imagine you could orbit a couple of mile diameter rock around the moon.
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There have been a few in the past, including the Apollo Command Module..
Which orbited, while the "lucky" guys walked on the surface.

AND, there is one Orbiting as we speak..
Called SMART-1, it was launched by the European Space agency.

It took long time to get there, using a Solar powered Ion engine, only the second spacecraft to use this type of propulsion...

Here is a bit more reading for you..

Smart 1


Space

Short answer: yes, the moon can have a satellite.

Longer answer: Since any object with mass has some gravitational pull, however minute, any object in space should be able to have a satellite. It's simply a matter of getting the orbital speed right. For a human, that speed would be pretty slow.

The other problem with small-massed objects having satellites, at least in the areas that we can directly observe, is that other, larger, objects exert a greater pull than would, say, an astronaut, and so disrupt the orbit of any potential satellite for the (much) smaller object.

For those physics geeks out there, I know that this is horribly oversimplified. If you like, I'll leave it to you to post the math

No need to post the math. Anything with mass can have a satellite. Even asteroids have satellites; at least some of them. Here's a link about it:

www.johnstonsarchive.net...

Reall, really big asteroids can have satelittes...

You could actually put a couple of bowling balls in space and if close enough to eachother would eventually come together. Anything with mass has gravitational pull. The denser the object the stronger the pull.

Heres a site that I found that shows the wobble of planets. There are tons of little java apps that you can run that shows what you want to know without getting bogged down in the math.

www.cuug.ab.ca...

Likes the wise one before me, any two objects can be made to orbit one another.

Yeah, I think people tend to forget that the *force* of gravity is the same pull on a 500lb bomb or a feather. In a vacume such as space they will fall at the exact same rate. When atmosphere is involved it is not so much weight that incures a difference in terminal velocity but more so surface area. Feather catches air.

BB and a bomb dropped from the same height, which hits first?

And a space vehicle in orbit is actually in freefall at a controlled rate.

[edit on 12/1/2004 by just_a_pilot]

We are all attraced to each other, since we have mass, we have some type of gravitation force. All you have to do is send an object into orbit, and it'll stay above the object. Simple.

Originally posted by Chieftian Chaos
We are all attraced to each other, since we have mass, we have some type of gravitation force. All you have to do is send an object into orbit, and it'll stay above the object. Simple.

Its routine now, but not simple. Enough energy is needed to push velocity above the centrifugal force that needs to be more than the mass of the object entering orbit. If you shoot a rocket straight up 300 miles it will come straight back down. Objects in *orbit* will eventually come back down to Earth ie SkyLab and many other expended vehicles. Object stay in orbit for extended periods because they have fuel on board to boost it back up. Once the fuel is gone, get ready for a nice fireball show if you live in the area it reenters the atmosphere.