![]() The LRV could move both forward and backward with a speed limit of about 9 mph (14 kph) - not quite as speedy or as heavy as Whipple and von Braun’s imagined Moon cars, but impressive nonetheless. The vehicle was powered by two 36-volt silver-zinc potassium hydroxide batteries, which drove four 0.25-horsepower motors (one for each of the rover’s wheels). Empty, it weighed 460 pounds (210 kilograms), and could carry an additional 1,080 lbs (490 kg), which included two full-grown men, their 180-lb (82 kg) spacesuits, as well as any tools and rocks they might excavate to bring back to the LM. In total, the LRV was about 10 feet (3 meters) long and 6 feet (1.8 m) wide. Though the original contract was for $19 million, costs inevitably ballooned and the three LRVs - one each was carried on Apollo 15, 16, and 17 - ultimately cost NASA $38 million. Work began in 1969 and the first vehicle was delivered in March 1971. The vehicles needed to minimize weight and maximize efficiency during relatively short lunar stays ranging from about 22 to 75 hours. But the idea of a Moon car was still an appealing one, and the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV, used on later, longer Apollo missions maximized scientific pursuits by expanding the area the men could cover.īoeing and General Motors’ Delco electronics division were contracted to build the LRVs for NASA. Whipple and von Braun had imagined a huge, weeks-long lunar exploration party with multiple ships carrying tens of men Apollo, by contrast, carried just two men to the lunar surface (while a third orbited overhead). Together, they presented novel ideas on how we’d land on and explore the Moon in a 1952 Collier’s Weekly article, “The Exploration.” Their vision included using vehicles to transport men and materials farther and more efficiently. These visionaries were Fred Whipple, chairman of the department of astronomy at Harvard University, and Wernher von Braun, technical director of the Army Ordnance Guided Missiles Development Group and often considered the father of modern rocketry. ![]() Their fictional moonwalkers rode on “surface vehicles, tank-like cars with caterpillar treads for mobility over the Moon’s rough surface.” These “Moon cars” ran on a combination of hydrogen peroxide and fuel oil, and could travel 25 mph (40 kph) on flat terrain to cover a maximum range of about 250 miles (400 kilometers). A decade before President Kennedy’s 1961 call to land men on the Moon, two men outlined their vision for what lunar surface exploration might realistically look like. ![]()
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