Walking on the Moon is harder than it looks, and the early astronauts proved that over and over.
If crews were going to work on the lunar surface for more than a couple of hours, they needed
a better way to get around.
So NASA and its contractors developed a revolutionary space vehicle, and the Apollo
15 astronauts would be the first to drive it on the Moon.
The concept of a cosmic car predated the Apollo Program.
Futuristic lunar vehicles were featured on the pages of science fiction books dating
all the way back to the early 1900s.
But when NASA was ready to actually develop a lunar vehicle, reality set in.
Designing and building a vehicle capable of operating in the Moon’s extreme environment
was not going to be easy.
Nothing like this had ever been done before, and because of that, every major manufacturing
company wanted in on the job.
Throughout the 1960s, NASA conducted studies with various contractors to determine the
best design for the lunar vehicle.
Some of the ideas were pretty outrageous.
There was the Lunar Worm, a vehicle that would inch its way across the lunar surface.
And the Lunar Leaper which would use "pogo sticks" to hop across craters.
But of all the designs, a massive mobile laboratory, dubbed MOLAB,
was one of the first under serious consideration.
At the beginning of the Apollo Program, the space agency planned for a dual launch scenario
in which the lunar vehicle would be sent into orbit on its own rocket.
This was the only way a mammoth vehicle like MOLAB could get to the Moon.
But by the mid-1960s, the cost of launching two rockets became unsustainable.
Scientists then shifted gears to developing smaller lunar vehicle concepts.
At the time, we hadn’t landed on the Moon yet so the surface composition was still uncertain.
Engineers experimented with different materials and tested prototypes in the Arizona desert
where the terrain was believed to be similar to the Moon.
At the Marshall Space Flight Center, the newly established Lunar Roving Task Team used the
test data to determine the specifications for the final design.
In 1969, NASA announced that Boeing would be the contractor to bring its
Lunar Roving Vehicle to life.
The manufacturer built several mock-ups and tested them in specialized chambers that mimicked
the extreme low-gravity vacuum of the Moon.
In just 17 months, Boeing delivered flight ready Lunar Roving Vehicles
for the final Apollo missions.
The LRV was powered by two 36-volt silver-zinc potassium hydroxide non-rechargeable batteries
that would last up to 78 hours during the lunar day.
Its tires were made of a woven mesh of zinc-coated piano wire, and titanium treads riveted
in a chevron pattern prevented the wheels from sinking into the lunar soil.
Each wheel was equipped with an electric motor, propelling the vehicle to a top speed
of 13 kilometers per hour.
Its frame was made of welded 2219 aluminum-alloy tubing, keeping the vehicle light yet strong
enough to carry over twice its weight.
The LRV frame hinged in the center enabling the entire car to fold into a compact package
small enough to stow in the Lunar Module.
The Apollo astronauts practiced deploying the new vehicle from the spacecraft and tested
out the rover’s T-shaped hand controller
which allowed them to navigate in their bulky spacesuits.
LRV training was crucial as the upcoming missions would spend more time on the lunar surface
than any mission before, traversing large portions of the Moon’s mountainous regions.
In order for this to happen, the Lunar Roving Vehicle needed to work as planned and the
astronauts only had a few months to master its maneuvers.
Apollo 15 was the first mission to launch with the LRV onboard.
Mission Commander Dave Scott was on his second Apollo mission while Lunar Module Pilot Jim
Irwin and Command Module Pilot Al Worden were on their maiden space voyages.
Once in lunar orbit, Scott and Irwin flew the LM to the Moon with the LRV in tow.
They pulled off a difficult landing in the Hadley Rille region,
chosen for its diverse geological landscape.
The crew's first test drive was rocky.
[Astronauts] I don't have any front steering, Joe.
The front-wheel-drive wasn’t working so Scott had to manage
with just the rear-wheel-drive system.
But the LRV was still able to adequately transport the astronauts as they searched
for anorthosites which are believed to be the Moon’s oldest rocks.
The Lunar Roving Vehicle traveled nearly 28 kilometers across the lunar surface over a
period of almost three days.
The crew’s only major complaint had to do with the restricting seatbelts - a major success
considering all that could have gone wrong.
When the astronauts wrapped their work on the Moon, they headed back to the Command
Service Module, leaving the LRV behind.
The next astronauts to drive on the Moon had a few extra months of training with a new rover.
Aside from lengthening the seatbelts, no major changes were made to the vehicle.
On April 16th, 1972, Apollo 16 and its LRV launched into space.
Four days later, astronauts John Young and Charles Duke landed in the Moon’s Descartes
highlands while Ken Mattingly stayed back in the Command Module.
Young and Duke successfully deployed the LRV and spent the next three days traversing nearly
27 kilometers in search of volcanic rock - which they never found.
But the astronauts did unveil a new understanding of a previously unknown part of the Moon,
which wouldn’t have been possible without the Lunar Roving Vehicle.
While it was only used for a small portion of the Apollo Program, the Lunar Roving Vehicle
revolutionized space exploration.
It gave astronauts the ability to do three times the amount of work
that would be done on foot.
And after Apollo, engineers used the LRV to help design rovers for the Mars Pathfinder
project which paved the way for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.
The LRV’s stint on the Moon was cut short, but the vehicle played a big part in NASA’s
original plans for life on the lunar landscape.
Dreams of lunar colonization, however, came to a close with the end of the Apollo
Program which went to the Moon for a final time with Apollo 17.
Seeker’s Apollo series explores each Apollo mission and
explains how the program revolutionized space travel.
You can get caught up on all of the episodes with this playlist.
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