Moon ladder

Imagine what it would be like to try to climb an incredibly long ladder stretching from the Earth to the moon. Impossible, you say Read on to learn more about a recent question I posed to a number of scientists, engineers, and computer programmers. For those of you who like to program computers. Appendix 1 contains some BASIC and C code to carry out similar (safer) experiments in the privacy of your own home. For those who prefer to philosophize without a computer, there is ample material here for lively debate and group discussion. 

Consider the following scenario. A standard ladder stretches from each country on the Earth upward a distance equal to the distance from the Earth to the moon. I asked scientists to assume the following ... 

FIGURE 2.1. Will any humans actually see a view like this from the ladder to the moon, or would it be impossible to travel the necessary distance ... 

BASIC and C code are provided in Appendix 1 so you can compute the weight of a human as he or she ascends the ladder. This gives rise to many unexpected insights, which I discuss shortly. In this scenario we assume the presence of both the moon and the Earth. 

Here, dj is the distance of your body to the center of the moon. The lower curve in Figure 2.2 shows the ratio of your new weight to your normal weight as you ascend the ladder. Obviously, the ratio is close to one when your distance from Earth is small (left side of graph). (For simplicity, we are ignoring the fact that an Earth-attached ladder also has centrifugal forces to consider.)... 

Would the journey be made more difficult with the gravitational effect of a third planetary body placed midway between the Earth and the moon Where is the center of mass for the Earth-moon system Arlin Anderson notes that the moon s mass is about 1/80 of the Earth s, and the moon is almost 240,000 miles away. Therefore, the center of mass of the Earth-moon system is 3,000 miles from the center of the Earth, or 1,000 miles below the Earth s surface I am interested in hearing from readers with additional insight into how humans could efficiently climb the long ladder postulated in this problem. 

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