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Comment by mediumdeviation | Hacker News Reader

Well, all Moonies have to do to see the Earth is to travel to the opposite side of it, whereas to do the opposite from Earth requires launching a vehicle out of the planet's atmosphere, across the orbit of the Moon, and back to Earth again.

Granted, it wasn't until several hundred years ago that Earthlings began to circumnavigate the globe, but the technology to travel long (cross-continental) distances have existed since ancient times.

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Wouldn't at most they just have to move a quarter across the moon? Just thinking out loud.

I think at most is incorrect, they could travel in the wrong direction.

The furthest they could be is a point exactly center of the far side of the moon. If they travel along a great circle, they'd only have to travel a distance equal to one quarter to the moon's circumference to be able to see the Earth.

But they'd have to know which direction is the correct direction, and they wouldn't know which direction is correct until they knew where the Earth was.

If they live not at the center of the far side - and if they choose the wrong direction (because how should they know?) - they can travel more than a quarter of the moon great circle.

Ah, good point. So really the at most is `0.5*circumference - epsilon` (starting just on the far side). In the worst case, if they manage to stay on a great circle.

From the article: "Owing to various view angles from different parts of the Earth, the most ambitious jet-setting astronomer could have seen a maximum of 59 percent of the surface of our planetary companion. "

If we take into account that fact that Earth is not a point, then epsilon is not so tiny after all, it's around 0.045 times circunference.

This would make the final result 0.455 times circunference.

Moonies is not the preferred nomenclature — Mooninites, please.

On the moon nerds get their pants pulled down and they are spanked with moon rocks.

You're not wrong...

Moonmen, please.

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