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Apollo 15 Anniversary: 50 Years Ago, NASA Put a Car on the Moon - The New York Times
Jul 27, 2021 2 mins, 53 secs

The lunar rovers of Apollo 15, 16 and 17 parked American automotive culture on the lunar surface, and expanded the scientific range of the missions’ astronaut explorers.

Jim Irwin with the lunar roving vehicle on the moon on July 31, 1971.

The Apollo 15 astronauts spent 18 and a half hours on the moon’s surface and traveled a distance of about 17 miles using the lunar rover.Credit...NASA.

Like many lunar samples returned to Earth by the final Apollo missions, Seatbelt Rock never would have been collected if the astronauts had not brought a car with them.

Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 are the NASA lunar missions that tend to be remembered most vividly.

But at the 50th anniversary of Apollo 15, which launched on July 26, 1971, some space enthusiasts, historians and authors are giving the lunar rover its due as one of the most enduring symbols of the American moon exploration program.

Foldable, durable, battery-powered and built by Boeing and General Motors, the vehicle is seen by some as making the last three missions into the crowning achievement of the Apollo era.

“Every mission in the crewed space program, dating back to Alan Shepard’s first flight, had been laying the groundwork for the last three Apollo missions,” said Earl Swift, author of a new book about the lunar rover, “Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings.”.

Once Neil Armstrong’s small step satisfied Project Apollo’s geopolitical goals, NASA emphasized science, said Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator of the Apollo collections at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

Plans for a lunar rover were finally given the green light just two months before Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans on the moon.

A photo spread in Life magazine showed the astronauts posing with their iconic American muscle cars alongside the moon buggy, making the lunar rover look cool by association, Dr.

Muir-Harmony said.

The astronauts’ excitement, and their car, brought the Apollo missions back down to Earth, Dr.

Muir-Harmony said.

On the moon, it had to operate in temperature swings of more than 500 degrees Fahrenheit between sunlight and shade; withstand abrasive lunar dust and micro-meteoroids traveling faster than bullets; and cover a sharp, rugged surface that contained mountains, craters, loose gravel and powder.

GM and Boeing engineers scrambled to finish their design in time for the final Apollo missions under threats that NASA would cancel the rover program before it ever left the ground.

Once the rover arrived and astronauts unfolded it on the moon, the experience of driving was also unexpectedly odd.

When the astronauts left the moon, the rovers were left at the landing sites, where they remain, gathering dust and cosmic rays.

The rover also allowed astronauts to focus on science more than worrying about running out of oxygen or other consumable resources, she said.

In May, General Motors announced a partnership with Lockheed Martin to build a new rover for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return American astronauts to the Moon this decade.

Although they were built decades apart and by different teams, the lunar rover program informed the first generation of Mars rovers, too, especially Sojourner, the first vehicle on another planet.

Muir-Harmony said the lunar rovers of Apollo, and its modern successors, represent that sense of adventure

The appeal of the lunar rover is connected to the appeal of human spaceflight, which is being able to witness their joy and a sense of vicarious participation,” she said

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