Zak 
josefone of the reasons that it took them 11 apollo missions to get to the moon is that they would always prepare to launch when it was a full moon. they'd point at the moon and be like "there it is!!!" but by the time they got there, it was like a waning crescent or even worse, a new moon, and theyd fly straight through it
in theory it's possible to land on the concave part of the crescent moon, but the gravitational field is kind of weird, so it's more akin to landing on an asteroid or something, and then you have to deal with the poor line-of-sight to the earth which complicates radio transmissions. so generally it's not worth it, compared to simply waiting for a full moon
John Rockefeller@jk I've often wondered if there are any 4d objects that appear in our universe. This is similar to how I would imagine it working.
@rocky1138 if a 3D object goes in front of another 3D object, it occludes it when projected onto a 2D surface. so i suppose if something occluded the moon in the 4th dimension, it would look like a CSG-style union (or subtraction) of the two shapes
@jk bonus points for csg mention
@rocky1138 2020s people would say "SDF" probably but im traditional
Ted Mielczarek@rocky1138 @jk have you read the _Remembrance of Earth's Past_ series? (_The Three-Body Problem_ is the first book in the series.) The third book, _Death's End_, has an interesting subplot that involves 4D objects. I have no idea if the physics posited in the book bear any resemblance to reality, but it was interesting to read!
@tedmielczarek @jk I have. Forgot about that though
JP
Matthew Skala@jk Also you want to make sure you're landing during the waxing, not waning, crescent. It's more slippery but you don't have to worry about breaking the Moon as it gets really thin.
Connor Cadellin@jk the trick was that they had to aim not at when the moon is, but when the moon was going to be.