The Lunar Rover

Apollo 15 Astronaut James Irwin with the Lunar Rover

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the final installment of the highly acclaimed documentary series “Moon Machines” which focuses on the design and development of the novel Lunar Roving vehicle carried to the Moon on the Apollo J-class missions commencing with the Apollo 15 mission.

Astronaut Gene Cernan aboard the Lunar Rover during the first EVA of Apollo 17

The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) or lunar rover was a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon during the last three missions of the American Apollo program (15, 16, and 17) during 1971 and 72. It was popularly known as the moon buggy, which was a play-on-words of dune buggy. The LRV could carry one or two astronauts, their equipment, and lunar samples.

Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the Apollo program, the fourth mission to land on the Moon and the eighth successful manned mission. It was also the first "J series" mission that deployed the Lunar Rover with 3 day lunar stay and extensive geology investigations at its landing site at Hadley Rille.

Moon Machines: The U.S. Moon missions would never have gotten 10 feet off the ground without the pioneering engineers and manufacturers and the amazing machines they created to turn science fiction into history-making headlines. From nuts and bolts to rockets and life support systems, every piece of gear was custom made from scratch to perform cutting-edge scientific tasks while withstanding the violent rigors of space travel. Now here's your chance to climb aboard the capsule, put on a spacesuit and learn the real stories behind the right stuff. Now you to can own a copy of this acclaimed documentary series which is available from Amazon.com.

Moon Machines - The Lunar Rover

Moon Machines (2008) Part 6: The Lunar Rover by aamirmalik1973 Copyright Disclaimer Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.