Joe is Vanguard's global chief economist and head of Vanguard Investment Strategy Group. He's also a member of the senior portfolio management team in Vanguard Fixed Income Group.
Apollo missions took about three days to reach the moon. But the quickest trip to the moon was the New Horizons probe, which zipped past the moon in just 8 hours 35 minutes on its way to Pluto. However, the spacecraft didn't even slow down or approach lunar orbit. Tidal forces.
A lunar month, also called a synodic month, is the time it takes for the moon to complete a lunar cycle â full moon to full moon. A lunar month is about 29 days 13 hours. A range of factors determines how long it takes to reach the moon. Human missions, for instance, tend to take longer than passenger-free satellites. Whether or not an object stops at the moon or just zips by also comes into play. The USSR launched the first mission to the moon, Luna 1, in 1959.