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.
How long does it take a rocket ship to get to the moon, and how fast will the rocket be going? Answer 1: A rocket ship, on its way to the moon, can get up to almost 25,000 miles per hour in order to escape the Earths atmosphere. However, it does not go that fast the whole way.