Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most brilliant scientists of all time, is supposed to have had a pet cat. Newton had cut a hole at the bottom of the door of his appartment to facilitate easy access for the cat. How nice of him! The cat could now enter and exit the house as he wished. Lucky kitty!
As time passed, the cat had had kittens, two of them. Now, Newton, one of of the greatest minds of all time, cut two smaller holes by the side of the first one to enable easy access to the house for each of the two kittens! How very, very, very nice of him!
Newton is hailed by millions as the cleverest of all scientists. It was he who discovered that white light is made up of the primary colors that are visible in the rainbow. Newton also discovered all the laws of nature that govern motion. One of the most important of all his discoveries was "Escape Velocity."
Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon lifted off on schedule and flew up to a point from which the earth's gravity would not let it fly further. The thrust of the engine versus the pull of the earth resulted in the spacecraft getting into earth orbit, which was exactly how nature has arranged.
The earth would not release its grip on Apollo. Although Apollo's engines were active, the velocity that it generated was not sufficient to break free from the earth's grip. However Apollo's engines had been programmed to generate this additional thrust at the required moment and the engines did just that.
Escape velocity, being approximately 25,048 mph was reached after the additional blast from Apollo's engines, enabling the spacecraft to break free from the earth's grip and to commence its journey to the moon. This operation had been named "Trans Lunar Injection Burn."
Newton had performed experiments firing cannon balls at different velocities to figure out the issues related to the topic. He discovered that the escape velocity required by an object is proportional to the mass of the planet, the grip of which the object needs to break free from, linked mathematically to the mass of the object itself.
He formulated a mathematical equation that enables accurate calculation of escape velocity, the required data being the mass of the object and the mass of the body (or planet) from which the body is projected.
In the meantime, that cat for whose benefit Newton had cut a hole at the bottom of the door which led to his appartment, is said to have had two more kittens!
... ... ... to be continued!
https://twitter.com/BrandedSwipe