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.
The Luna 2 was made by the Soviet Union, and it reached the Moon in 1959. The Luna 2 took a direct path to the Moon, and the journey took approximately 34 hours. The shortest trip to the Moon was undertaken in 2006 by NASA, by the probe New Horizons. New Horizons travelled at 58,000 km/hr, and arrived at the Moon in 8 and a half hours.