/sci/ - Science & Math

During Apollo 11, while the astronauts were on the moon's surface, the Lunar Command Module was orbiting above the moon at 3,600 miles per hour. To put this into perspective, a typical .223 rifle round fired from a 16 inch barrel travels around 2,000mph. After 21 hours of moonwalking, Buzz and Neil launched from the lunar landing module to meet up with the orbiting command module in order to travel back to earth.

Essentially, you have a giant hunk of metal traveling 1.5 times faster than a rifle round and you launch another hunk of metal to meet up with it. The math is insane. I cannot find any details on the internet that go into detail how the landing module rendezvous with the command module.