Question

The Apollo 14 astronaut, Alan Shepard, smuggled on board the spacecraft a golf club so that he could hit a golf ball on the surface of the moon. The gravitational acceleration on the moon is about 1/6 of what it is on the Earth. Let’s say Shepard is at the top of a crater that is 12 m tall. He hits the ball with the club so that it has a velocity of 10 m/s at an angle of 25° with respect to the horizontal. (a) What is the maximum height of the ball from the bottom of the crater? (b) How far does the golf ball travel horizontally before it hits the ground? (c) What is the magnitude and direction of the velocity of the golf ball right before it hits the ground below?

Answer 1