What did the captain mean when he said,"sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're really not losing it. you're just passing it on to someone else"?

It means "that when we sacrifice something we are not losing but giving someone else a chance or something to improve their lives."

Explanation:

The given quote is taken from "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" written by Mitch Albom.

The novel is about Eddie, an 83-year-old man, who died saving a young girl. The next thing that happened was Eddie was in heaven where he meets five people who impacted his life when he was young.

The second person that he met in heaven was Captain. Captain and Eddie worked together in Vietnam War. Captain shares his experience with Eddie and how he died. At this point, he states the given quote. Captain sacrificed his life, while they were on a mission, for his team. the Captain meant to say that when we sacrifice something for others we do not lose anything but we help them.

a. the moon was locked into orbit by the earths gravity as it was passing by and capture hypothesis i think