@skanman Well I was referring to you and me, but if your busy, whatever I guess. I suggest ankle weights over golf shoes. I expect to have some problems keeping your back foot down on the thru swing.

@obi good thinking, I wonder if someone makes a golf ball that won't burn up entering the Earth's atmosphere, cause if I can land an eagle at Pebble Beach from the moon, I think they give you a free T-Shirt.

@skanman a diamond golf ball may survive. You buying? Ironically, i was a golf professional for 17 years 😂

@obi Wow,17 years in the business! I've only ever played for fun, it relaxes me and I don't want it to stress me out. But back to serious business, I wonder what costs more. A bucket of golf-ball-cut diamonds, or the trip there.😂 Also apparently gotta hit the ball at least 2.38 km/s to break the moon's gravity. It's been a while, I should hit the links again.

@skanman I didn't think escape velocity on the moon was that high! Thanks for the lesson. The trip there is more expensive, but when you are spending a few billion, whats a couple hundred million more?

@obi yes but for 4 people, if we find 2 more it's only about a billion a pop. You were pro, at least you could get a sponsor. We'd also need the golfballs to be rocket propelled which is ironically still bares the acronym RPG.

@skanman that's not a bad price. Can I use my frequent flyer miles? I don't know who you think I am, but if you saw my drive you would know that I am not in need of rocket propelled anything to hit a ball of that moon

@obi no way really?, I don't think I could do it even with my titanium Ping 1 driver. I could be wrong, but you're forgetting one small detail. While there's no wind resistance, that damn planetoid is 100% sand trap, and finding a transparent golfball if it flies to the dark side will be hard. It's still probably a good idea to bring a few regular golf balls for practice shots. At least for me.

@skanman Good idea. We could use some tech from glow in the dark golf balls. I used hold a little night golf tournament every year for the members using them. They are fun, but again, don't compress as much as 3-4 layer golf balls, so we won't get the same launch speed. To help out your drive, we could supe this up https://www.golfmagic.com/equipment-news/swingless-golf-club-makes-it-easy-anyone-play-game

@obi There's a Christmas special on that club, $995 as if that matters on a moon trip. Also, diamond golf balls don't compress. 😂 But could be with a glow in the dark core. Which would probably look insanely amazing. Honestly, I wouldn't have bought Twitter, I would probably be on my 3rd trip for moon golf already. Night golfing sounds awesome. I could think of a few courses I'd love to do play at night. You know what though, if we went to the ISS, we could just attach a platform to the station, and could hit the ball with a regular club pretty into the Earth's atmosphere easily. And the ISS has a toilet. I bet going to the ISS is cheaper too. But it doesn't carry the same bragging rights back at the clubhouse.

@skanman If we are going to do this, we are going to do this right. ISS? Child's play. We are going to the moon.
Yeah, diamonds dont compress, that's why I was suggesting it in replacement for the golf ball's solid core. However, it would still need an outer core, followed by a a mantle like/sized layer, and then the outer layer. The good news is, we don't have to add dimples to the ball, as the thin atmosphere would not take advantage of them (unless we make the dimple HUGE. Maybe that would be a way to get some extra lift. i would need to know how thin the moon's atmosphere is though, and bring in a physicist (there are plenty here). I think to make it work for the extra lift it would need to be a very tough, thin, and deep dimple. The golf ball might end up looking like a beach ball at that point. So maybe we scrap the dimples. All I know is we are doing this RIGHT.

@obi Well since we're doing this right. Dimples will be a major factor. There's 7000 miles of atmosphere. So plenty for them to grab. But I propose this. A multistage golfball in which once the dimples, and compound layers served their purpose they burn off leaving a laser cut carbon ceramic core. The terminal velocity of a regular golfball is 240mph, ours will be faster due to lack of dimples and additional core weight. This will help dramatically with accuracy. The real trouble won't be the lower atmosphere but the upper, the winds are much much higher. So whatever course is chosen should be as far away from the jet stream as possible, and as close to the moon as possible, so along the equatorial axis, as an added bonus, the Coriolis effect in that area is also minimal, I'm gonna suggest to the PGA that they add a rule. "If the crater left by the golfball consumes the hole and flag, it's counted as good". Also, I'm not sure how we can yell "FORRRRE!!!" to a 5000sqm radius of people. I think you're right about the physicist. Lucky we're on a STEM instance and can summon their help with hashtags. #physics #physicist #thermodynamics #astrophysics 😂

@skanman That's some good ideas. I will take care of the money, you take care of the calculations. Your going to have to calculate the launch angle from the move with the velocity (let's say 180mph, I think I could do that there possibly, depending on space suit restriction on swing) , the and speed of the moon in relation to earth, and try to tie that to the location of our golf hole, obviously taking into effect earths speed.

p.s. Don't forget to factor in the position of 10,000ish satellites. Shouldn't be hard space is bigger than a golf course, and teh courses I play have less than 10,000 trees, altho the trees are stationary 😜

@obi launch angle is easier than that, in fact, the time is more important, in more interesting fact, the earth sets and rises from the horizon of the moon. When we shoot, the earth won't be visible yet because of the balls travel time. Remember, the earth will be moving faster than our ball. 😶 I'm suddenly humbled 😂

I don't think you should head the entire burden, cause I'd enjoy this round of golf probably just as much as you. While you're buying the lotto ticket, I'll write my congressman.

Also don't forget, Alan Shepard tried this already. NASA is pro moon golfing.

https://youtu.be/t_jYOubJmfM

@skanman He's a trash golfer tho.

😂

@obi oh no doubt, I was just using this as an example that I don't think anybody besides the lottery or Congress would stop us 😂

I'm amateur and I could do better, he couldn't even keep his eye on the ball, and he used a 6 iron! What's he thinking?!

@skanman hmmmm. This is interesting. Firstly, 6 iron is my best club, funny enough. Secondly. No that u mention it, choosing a different club than a driver would be a big advantage in our situation perhaps. While longer shaft of a typical club (driver) creates the most centrifugal force, Tue other benefits of lower spin rate and launch angle would be null to us, with the moon's thin atmosphere. We could get nearly the same ball speed to a point, as spin wouldn't nearly negatively affect as much. I will have to think about this. I think we could do a graphite shaft of a long iron, perhaps 2-4 iron, and get much better accuracy with little to no loss of ball speed. Will have to think on this more

@obi seeeee this is why you're the golf pro, you think about these things, I just think, the earth is sorta far, go for the driver. 😂 I'm not as concerned about the moon's atmosphere as the Earth's.

@skanman https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-escape-velocity-from-the-moon-How-difficult-is-it-to-launch-into-space-from-the-surface-of-the-moon-in-terms-of-energy-and-resources-required-when-compared-with-launching-from-Earth the dream is over. If I hit on this lotto ticket I guess we will go to the ISS. F

@obi you're giving up easily here, I'm 2.4km/s I think is more doable than you think it is. However, the golf club will be stupid looking. The longer the golf club, the faster the club head travels right? By extending the length dramatically and designing the arms of the space suit correctly with full twisting axis. See, Alan Shepard brought a golf club designed for the earth. But on the moon, you're theoretically 10x more powerful. If the equipment is optimized for this, I think it's still doable, but nothing, can slow anything down. Gonna have to go back to the diamond ball, regular will explode on contact.

@skanman I will go buy a lotto ticket while you work on that.