This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Maybe I could do this some day,’” Flemming said. “If they’re interested in math or science, they might say, ‘This is really cool. “Hopefully, this rover will inspire the next generation of engineers and astronauts to pursue their dreams in science, technology, engineering, and math.”Īlec Flemming, an ONU senior mechanical engineering major from Powell, Ohio, said he hopes young children, who see a project like the replica lunar rover, will be inspired in some way. “I don’t know how many other museums can drive their own lunar rovers,” Burton said. “We tried to make it aesthetically as close to the actual rover as we possibly could.”Ĭhris Burton, executive director of the Armstrong Air & Space Museum, said it was amazing that they will now have a realistic working vehicle for outreach events. “I hope the people who encounter the rover are able to experience exactly what the astronauts felt,” said Eric Dicke, an ONU senior mechanical engineering major from New Bremen, Ohio. These included physics, financial considerations, and authenticity. Team members worked with the university’s student project manager in order to deal with the real-life problems of adapting a vehicle intended for use on the Moon to being drivable on Earth. It had to function in Earth’s gravity, which meant the wire mesh tires had to be discarded. The duplicate is not identical to the rovers now sitting on the surface of the Moon. The materials and funds were provided by ONU’s Archer Memorial Fund, the Ohio Space Grant Consortium, and Polaris Industries. The total cost of the reproduction was approximately $19,000. The students who worked on the project came from a variety of majors-mechanical, electrical, computer, and civil engineering, as well as the college’s new engineering education major. The duplicate rover was built by 23 students at ONU who spent more than 3,000 documented hours on the project for six consecutive semesters. It includes duplicates of the original rover’s high-gain antenna and tool storage. Like the original lunar rover, the Museum’s rover can seat two and travel up to ten miles an hour. Unfortunately, by then, the Moon landings were receiving very little television coverage, and much of that footage has never been seen-except by space enthusiasts. Additionally, it brought color television of the Moon’s most spectacular regions into America’s living rooms. This enabled real-time television coverage of every phase of each mission. Because of that, after landing, the astronauts removed the television camera on the lunar module and attached it to the rover. Commander Gene Cernan drove the rover while Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, the first and only scientist to go to the Moon, collected rock samples from the Taurus-Littrow region.Įach of the rovers taken to the Moon was equipped with a high-gain antenna. The final rover taken to the Moon was on Apollo 17 in December 1972. For three days, Scott and Irwin explored the Hadley Rille-Appenine region of the Moon, driving to remote sites and collecting the oldest rock yet discovered.Īpollo 16 took a similar rover to the Moon in April 1972, when Commander John Young and Lunar Module Pilot Charlie Duke explored the Cayley Plains. Scott became the first human being to drive a car on the Moon. On July 30, 1971, Commander Dave Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin unfolded and assembled their rover out of the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) of the lunar module Falcon. Unlike Apollo 11 (the “G” mission) or Apollo 12 through 14 (the “H” missions), the “J” missions carried extra batteries and oxygen, more lunar surface experiments, and, of course, the rover.Īpollo 15 was the first “J” mission. It was to be incorporated in the Lunar Module for the “J” missions. The battery-powered LRV was originally developed by Boeing for NASA’s Apollo Moon landing program. The Apollo 15 lunar rover in the Hadley Rille region of the Moon.
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