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Apollo 15 Commander Talks About Developing and Driving Lunar Buggy

Posted by samzenpus on from the more-fun-than-moon-patrol dept.

szczys writes: Greg Charvat recently sat in on an MIT course called "Engineering Apollo". For this set of sessions, David Scott recounted his experience as an astronaut. David was the commander of the Apollo 15 mission, flew several others, and took part in the development of much of the equipment used in the moon missions. The class is basically him hanging around with a bunch of engineers talking in a level of detail rarely heard. From the Hackaday article: "As if you had any doubts, but David confirms the lunar rover was really fun to drive. The vehicle had a wide wheel base, a low center of gravity, and each wheel had its own motor. But there was one occasion that caused a stir when the rover nearly slid down a mountain."

9 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. hey, y'all, watch this! by turkeydance · · Score: 2

    if you almost slid off a moon mountain...you might be a redneck

    1. Re:hey, y'all, watch this! by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Even if it rolls, its only 1/6th gravity so I don't think its going to do too much damage to the actual structure.

      If momentum builds up, then gravity doesn't matter much. A collision with a boulder at 30 mph is going to do almost the same damage on the moon as on Earth.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  2. "Wide" wheelbase, huh? by Type44Q · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Whoever came up with that choice phrase ought to stick to using words and phrases that they actually know the meaning of...

    1. Re:"Wide" wheelbase, huh? by geekmux · · Score: 2

      Whoever came up with that choice phrase ought to stick to using words and phrases that they actually know the meaning of...

      Quite true.

      Me personally though? I couldn't stop laughing over the low center of gravity comment, as if we're gonna measure the damn thing on a skidpad.

    2. Re:"Wide" wheelbase, huh? by towermac · · Score: 2

      You guys need to stop.

      You would have had some tall rickety tricycle thing.

      "Hey look, higher lunar speed!"

  3. Apollo 16 Rover Awesomeness by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Image stabilized video from Apollo 16 detailing the awesomeness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cKpzp358F4

    --

    Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

    Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    1. Re:Apollo 16 Rover Awesomeness by k6mfw · · Score: 4, Interesting

      it's not video, it's film. And the camera had no audio input which many movie cameras back in days had no audio. Oh, there's no air to propagate sound waves. What's amazing is showing the Moon as a place where people actually were decades before most of you were born.

      --
      mfwright@batnet.com
  4. Ugly Lander [Re:hey, y'all, watch this!] by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The rover is light...they had to get it there on that most rickety looking lunar lander.

    It's kind of funny that they once envisioned this:

    http://public.media.smithsonia...

    But instead we got this:

    https://www.nasa.gov/sites/def...

    To be frank, it looks like a 2nd grade science project using cardboard, aluminum foil, and brass-colored duct-tape.

    If somebody brought a model of that to school in the 50's as a lunar lander project, it would be laughed at, smashed, and given an "F", not necessarily in that order.

    I remember seeing some aerospace contractor sketches of the early 60's. It started out a bit cleaner, but over time became more and more skeletal. No politically-conscious manager would approve a contract with something that ugly, so they dressed it up a bit.

    I would note that Von Braun sketched up spindly looking designs in the early 50's: http://www.astronautix.com/cra...

    Ahead of his time.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  5. Re:Remember... by demonlapin · · Score: 2

    And something like half the integrated circuit output of the entire world at the time.