Planning Apollo 11

[Jedothek]

Did the planning for Apollo 1 1 involve consideration of general relativity, or, given the precision required, was Newtonian mechanics sufficient?

[Proponent]

I'm sure it was all Newtonian.

[AS-503]

The 60 mile high lunar orbit of Apollo 11 and subsequent LM landing were both influenced by the moon's lumpy gravity (mascons). NASA figured this out and was able to get a precision landing on the next Apollo flight. Apollo 12 landed spot-on next to the targeted Surveyor as planned!

So, on the newtonian side of things, the science of the lunar landing was still evolving during Apollo 11s planning phase.

[Citabria]

At Apollo speeds, relativistic effects in space and time amount to less than one part per billion, much less than the navigational accuracy, so they could be ignored. Course correction maneuvers were made to correct all navigation errors, including those tiny effects.

[whitelancer64]

I don't know if it was designed with Einstein's work in mind, but at least one part of the Apollo missions - the laser rangefinding experiments - have had a big impact on our understanding of it.

Modern high-precision atomic clocks and lasers have allowed for extremely narrow error bars on various parts of Relativity, in particular the Strong and Weak equivalence principle, and the Gravitational constant.