October 18, 2011 • 27 mins
When the Apollo missions reached the surface of the moon, astronauts used lunar rovers to navigate the terrain -- after all, you can only get so far moon walking. Listen in as Scott and Ben explore the design of the lunar rover in this podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how stuff works dot Com. I am
Scott Benjamin, and welcome to the podcast. I'm the auto
editor here at how stuff works dot com, and my
name is Ben Ben Bowling. That is, uh, Scott. I
(00:20):
usually don't even say my last name because I'm the
only been here. You're like the closest thing to the other. Ben. Yeah,
I guess so, Ben Ben Ben Show, Benn and Benjamin,
Ben and Benjamin doesn't really work Benjamin and Ben. Yeah,
Mr b Sometimes I call you that, my call the
Benjamin Show. We're fine, Scott. Yeah, let me tell you
just just momentarily. I think the vehicles were about to
(00:42):
talk about are some of the coolest rounds. I know
you've been excited about this one since the very beginning. Yeah,
I think I'm excited about it. I I really am.
I like watching the footage of these vehicles that yeah,
the the the old old footage of this stuff, because
it's really really cool. It just looks surreal. Um, But
I don't know about actually doing it myself. I'm not sure.
(01:03):
Are you serious? Yeah? I think I think so. We'll
get to it. Okay, Well, all right, let's let's destroy
the dispense the suspense. Dispense with the suspense. About that,
for any of our listeners who love the show so
much they didn't even read the title, we're talking. We're
talking about lunar rovers today, which are, of course the
vehicles that uh, you're a friendly neighborhood rocket scientists and
(01:26):
engineers at NASA and other uh space exploration agencies design
for astronauts who think, well, the Moon's small, but it's
a big place, and I don't want to walk everywhere
driving on the moon. Driving on the moon, right, and
on the moon. That's that's gotta be fun. I mean,
it really does. I bet it is fun. But I'll
tell you we'll get to the very end before I
(01:46):
say away why I may not want to do this. Okay,
it's here, So we should start at the beginning and
then go through the middle first. I'm sorry, that's something
like that. I saw. I saw some I think that's
from Alice in Wonderlands. Okay, at you all right, So
let's see. I guess, uh in nineteen seventy two, is
(02:06):
that where we really well, I guess we could start
one year earlier, because that's the end of the program. Really. Yeah,
poly missions you're probably familiar with to poly missions. Uh,
they carried these lunar rovers with them to the Moon.
There were a lot of Moon a lot of Moon
exploration projects happened at the time, particularly these missions here
a poly mission fifteen through seventeen, and those were the
(02:28):
missions that they carried lunar rovers with them. Um, the
first one, the first person to drive in the Moon.
Can you imagine being that wouldn'd be cool? That would
be I would still be talking about it. Yeah, probably,
I don't know. I'm not sure the whereabouts of David
Randolph Scott who was the first. He was an American astronaut. Um,
the poll fifteen astronaut who first has claimed her families
(02:50):
he first drove on the Moon in seventy one. Other
than being a really cool astronaut, yeah, which is already
in itself exactly. I mean to say, you've been on
the Moon unbelievable, but to to have driven on the
Moon even cooler, and to be the first another notch.
It's like impossibly cool, priceless. What kind of these vehicles?
What kind of rovers were these? They're called lunar lunar
(03:14):
roving vehicles. And they're electric because you can't have an
internal combustion engine. There's no air to burn, um, so
they have to be electric. They've got two thirty six
vold batteries. Um. I guess we don't need to go
through the whole frame and everything, every little bit about it.
But basically it has two seats that look like lawn
chairs that are this woven material. Um. I think that
(03:36):
the astronauts were strapped into these with velcro seat belts.
Is that right? Yeah, belcros seat belts. Did you read
about this? But I had heard about this because they
had to They had to hold them in somehow, and
they had other they had handholds, Yeah, they held on
dead handholds. The steerings a little different. Um. This thing
was about the The original l r V was about
the size of a Volkswagen beetle, right, not the size
(03:59):
of a bug. So they're strapped on and they had
some we call them, I guess for the radio. I'll
call them os handles. Yeah, sure, yeah, you know you
know the ones in your car by the window where
you you grab on things. Um, they had something like that.
I believe I would think would be low because there's
low there's no there's no body really built around us.
It's the position is different. It's like a rolling frame
(04:20):
almost really yeah. Um, so again it's electric. Um they
had I think they had their feet strapped in as
well as they didn't kind of float up because you know,
you've got to deal with that space. Did they I
could see that. That's cool. What straps or something to
slide their feet into at least, which is a good idea. Um,
there's no steering wheel. I think you just mentioned that, right. Yeah,
the steering is a little different stick control t shape.
(04:40):
And oh one of the cool things the steering control
I think was in the middle of the car, so
that either side could drive the vehicle because the stick
control controls acceleration, breaking, turning everything. So, um, either seat
could could drive. Which ties into something that we can
talk about a little bit later in the show, which
is uh NASA's nessa serry obsession with redundancy. Yeah, that's right,
(05:03):
and there's a lot of good reason for that. Yeah,
a lot of really good reason for that in this case.
And I imagine having a flat tire, you know, you
several miles from the from the the spacecraft and you've
got to somehow get back. So, um, this thing was
capable of you know, one wheel could completely malfunction, the
other three would be able to handle it. I don't
(05:24):
know about if two happened to malfunction, that would be
but you have to kind of catty corner your way
back exactly. They were all powered, they were all individually powered.
They could all steer um, and they were made and
this is pretty interesting. I thought the tires are made
of well, they've got aluminum frames. There's an interer and
outer frame. And they've also that they're made of galvinized
(05:45):
piano wire, yeah, which is weird. Yeah, and they've got
these titanium treads I guess that that have a chevron
pattern cut into them. Um, so, very very strong tires obviously.
But from what I remember, I think I remember hearing
that one of the astronauts, it seems like he's a
little rough on the lunar uh lenar rover um one
one one astronaut in particular, And I wish I had
(06:07):
the guy's name, And I want to say that it's
a certain Sermon. Is that his name? Uh Ijeene Sermon?
Oh yeah, Eugene certain. Yeah, I think he's the one.
I think, And I don't mean to pin this on
him if it's not him, but I know that he did.
He he did do some accidental body damage to the
lunar rover. Oh with the hammer. This is on the
final mission on a Polo seven team. Um. He the
(06:30):
hammer snagged offender, I guess, and it ripped the fender off.
And they can't really drive it without offender because the
Moon's surface um is full of dust. It's dusty and sand,
you know, just saying whatever the material is exactly, and
so if they're driving through this, it's gonna be flying
all over him. They somehow fashion defender out of what
they had. They mgeivered it. I'm gonna go ahead and
(06:51):
make that a verb. They used a laminated map and
some duct tape. See qualifies, right, brilliant? Well, I mean
astronauts are smart people, right, Yeah, I mean duct tape.
Isn't that cool that they fixed They fixed it with
duct tape? Yeah? It kind of gives me some credibility
at home, does it? Yeah, a little bit. I'm gonna
remember that. I'm gonna reference Commander Gene Cernan next time
(07:14):
I have to do And I think I think they said.
And now I remember I said, I didn't want to
pinnace on him, right, But remember the super tough tires.
I was telling you about the piano. Why I think
he damaged a tire as well. Wow, I know that's tough.
I know what he's up there doing. I mean, it's
full of craters. The Moon's a crazy place, Scott. It's
crazier than Vegas. So but you think you would protect
(07:35):
this thing awful? You know, just be a little more
careful around it, I guess right, And it goes into
redundancy no matter how much, uh how much effort an
astronaut or someone in the control room or in the
design team makes to create a perfect, full proof lunar vehicle.
The truth is that we've barely been to the moon
(07:56):
in humanities history, So everything we do is a prototype
and learning experience. And check out this segway, Scott. Uh.
NASA has also kind of learned from their mistakes and
tried to evolve. True. Yeah, they're they're evolving. Yeah, that's right,
because there there are more vehicles on the way other
than the lunar rover Um. There's a couple of prototypes
(08:16):
that are while they've been in the works for a
long time really, um, and they've tested them. They've tested
them in a desert environment. UM. First is the lunar truck,
and lunar truck is it's pretty cool. I can really
kind of a cargo is very very UM. I guess
jobs specific you know, it's um. I don't know if
that's the right way or not, but it's not really
(08:37):
for carrying people. UM, I believe too. Can two astronauts
can can ride this thing. But the driver stands on
a platform that can be raised. And Lord has a
huge carrying capacity compared to the Lunar Rover, which I
think can only carry um, you know, in addition to
everything else, I think it could only carry about sixty
pounds of of material like moon rocks and things like yeah. Yeah,
(09:00):
because you know, the moon it's made of blue cheese,
and they wanted to bring a lot of it back,
so they brought for the chicken wings exactly. They had
a lot of well not just a reasonable amount of
space for moon rocks things like that, um, but they
did have a lot of other weight, you know, some
some of the equipment like that, you know, and just
their suits themselves. The vehicle itself. You know, that's a
lot of stress on an electric vehicle, because we're already
(09:22):
talking hundreds of pounds on the order of hundreds of
pounds just with the let's see, wait, two astronauts and
suits and backpacks, right, that's about eight hundred pounds, And
so it's interesting here we shall also point on our pounds.
I know, yeah, that's crazy. Those they're tough, they're tough people.
But also we should point out, as everyone knows, gravity
on the Moon is not gravity on Earth, So some
(09:45):
of these numbers might sound a little a little bit screwball,
like the l RV weighing about four hundred sixty pounds
on Earth, but on the Moon, you know, it's different.
I understand you'd say, um, is it it's like one
night I want to say one six one six. I
think it's one six um. But it does have a
(10:06):
pretty good carrying capacity, I mean, based on it are
compared to its weight um. And one one quick thing
before we move on to the lunar truck, the Apollo,
that I believe that one of the lunar rovers was
left on the surface of the Moon, so all we
have to do is pick it up. You know, I'm
not one sure about this, Ben, you know, but did
you come across this anywhere in your research? Because I
(10:27):
I meant to dig up more on this, and if
I if you didn't, don't worry, it's okay. But but
I did find this. I apologize, that's all right. I
found this intriguing question because, um, and I promise we'll
get to the truck. It's the ultimate garage. Fine exactly,
but that uh well whatever. Um, anyways, the I found
(10:49):
this intriguing question. It was on a science site. It
was asking if you would be able to see the
flag that the astronauts have left on the surface of
the Moon or other objects that have been left up there,
and one of the things and then this kind of
pointed me in the direction that maybe it is still
up there. Um. The answer is no, you can't see
anything on the Moon that we've left there. And the
(11:09):
reason is because we don't have telescopes large enough to
do that. On Earth. We haven't. We just haven't built
one that big. But the at the time of this writing,
and I don't know if this has changed since, but
the largest telescope is the Keck Telescope in Hawaii, which measures,
which measures ten meters in diameter. The Hubble Space telescope
is two point four meters in diameter. Just to give
(11:29):
you a comparison, So this Keck telescope in Hawaii is
ten meters in diameter. UM. To be able to see
the lunar rover on the surface of the Earth of
the surface of the Moon. On the Moon, UM, you
would need a telescope that is seventy five in diameter.
So you're talking almost eight times the size of the
(11:49):
largest that we have right now. That's massive. I mean,
so you know the ones that you've got in your backyard.
They point out that, you know, you're six inch or
eight inch telescope is not going to do it. I'm
so tired of you ridiculing my telescope collections. Yeah, that's
not gonna just telescope. They said that it would require
(12:10):
about a sy in diameter telescope to see the lunar
rover that's left on the Moon. Wow, I know, I
for some reason thought you'd be able to spot that. Yeah,
it's just logically it's strange that we could physically get
there but not be able to see it. It's an
awful long way away. That's what I hear. Yeah, that's
(12:30):
what I hear about the moon. That's what I haven't
been yet. It's a lonely placed lunar trucks. Lunar trucks. Yes,
we started to get there. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. We
were talking about the driver. And one of the craziest
things about this vehicle is that the driver has the
perch right as as you said. You can sit around,
they can stand, and they're almost at the center of
(12:51):
the vehicle on top everything. And the truck has these
six wheels with two tires each, and so the steering
or not to get two bogged down, each wheel can
be steered independently, which has got to be incredibly complex
for the driver. But you know, it can just like
the older l r V. It can go forward, backwards, sideways,
(13:13):
any combination there. Up, it's like the Elevator and Willy Wonka,
you remember at the very end of the movie direction. Yeah,
not to spoil it for anybody, just in case you're
talking about the early nine seventies movie. Ye, again, my
favorite version. This has been around for forty years, so
go ahead. Yeah, And so you know that's two podcasts
(13:34):
in a row. I think that you've given away the
ending to a forty year old movie. Young know, Man, God,
I'm really getting bad at this. I mean to Okay,
so it can it can? This not Willy Wonka's elevator,
but this uh lunar truck can go about fifteen miles
an hour with nothing on it, blistering, blistering speed. Yeah.
(13:55):
I think the LRV was capable of twelve still fastest
thing on the moon. The end will blow anything else
in the moon away. Yeah all right, And you know what,
I just dug this up that it's able to carry
four astronauts, So you can carry four astronauts at a time.
But it's not pressurized, so they have to have their
suits on exactly just like the older one, like the
(14:15):
old one. And that's that's a big deal. Um yeah,
it's it's a huge deal. On neck gets into the region. Why,
I don't want to dry one of these, But um,
if we want to talk about pressurized vehicles, they've got
another one that is pressurized, better for long excursions on
the moon. My absolute favorite, is it? Really? This is
my absolute favorite. You've probably seen this one, then, right?
(14:37):
Have you seen this one? Driving? I saw a video Okay,
gonna I'm gonna guess. Go ahead, all right, do you
want to I'll give you one guess because I know
you know it. It was the inauguration. It was the
inauguration of the president of the current pressis. It was
at the tail end of the parade, and this thing,
you know, it just looked really cool and it was
(14:59):
really cool. Yeah, it was really cool. And this is
the one. If you saw the inauguration, you saw this
this nasive vehicle that was tooling down the Abbot Pennsylvania Avenue.
There um really cool looking thing. But the idea behind
this one is that you're able to take it out
for longer excursions and you're able to do um more
field work on the moon. Like three days you could
drive on the moon. That qualifies as a road trip
three days. That's pretty awesome. That would be cool. Can
(15:22):
you imagine how far you could explore in three days?
I mean, I don't know what top speed is on
this thing. Okay, by the way, maybe not that far,
but you could go at a reasonable distance, a reasonable Yeah. Um,
I'm pretty cool about this this one. And in a way,
this one kind of scares me, maybe more than the others.
(15:42):
And again, we'll get into that, okay, But yeah, the
cool thing about this one is it's it's self contained
and has bathrooms of course, the shower and all that,
has all the scientific you know, lab space that they
would need. And um, I believe this one also has
doesn't have a second pressure life chamber, yes, which is
really cool. And this is a big deal to anybody
(16:04):
that would be doing any kind of moon exploration because
of the dust factor that we talked about before. Um,
prior to this, they would have to pressurize and deep
pressurize the entire capsule every time the door open exactly,
and everybody would be you know, everybody would have to
do this and they bring back in dust and sand
and you know whatever else is out there, um, you know, moon, moon, man, particles,
(16:28):
blue sheet, whatever, and um that's the second time and um,
so it was you know, there's a potential for a
lot of problems with that, right yeah. Absolutely, So hopefully
with this one there's gonna be less possibility of equipment
malfunction due to the surface of the Moon. And another
reason that it's a very big deal to have a
(16:50):
a pressurized cabin that's mobile is the radiation or the
potential for radiation. Um, the the enormous. I have to
be honest with this guy, I can't name them. Well,
but there's this overwhelming number of X factors that apply
when there is an AST or not out walking in
(17:11):
in just in a suit because technically, you know, walking
on the moon is still a n E v A. Uh,
we have very little defense. You're not protected by the atmosphere, right,
You're you're you're not shielded by anything. You're just absorbing
solar radiation. Um, and this is a little bit off that.
But this thing is huge, this thing and then how
(17:31):
big is it? I was looking at this, Uh, it's
like a seventies game show. Um. The specs on this
thing are unbelievable. At weighs something like eight nearly nine
thousand pounds, crazy nearly nine thousand pounds, which, as we said,
it doesn't really matter I guess that much when you
get on the moon, because yeah, those are earth pounds
per pounds, that's right. And it's uh, let's see, it's
uh fourteen point one earth feet high like, um, now,
(17:58):
well doesn't not do that. It's a about fourteen point
eight feet long and it's about thirteen feet why So
this is a monster and you'll see it in the
video if you watch the inauguration video at the end,
where you can probably do a word search for just
for this small pressurizer over they called the s SPR
and you probably would be able to find that just
individually if you don't want to go through the whole
inaugurgation video. Do you know what this one's my favorite? Scott?
(18:21):
Why is that? Because you can live in it? And
it reminds me of a very heavily customized van. You
know what it does? It does look like that. I
didn't think of that when I saw it, but um, yeah,
i'd buy that. You know those van shows they have
in Japan, if I could roll up there and you know,
you would fit right in this looks at this, the
last picture on this article definitely looks like a customized van.
(18:44):
But you still wouldn't want to drive one. Okay, here's
the reason. Okay, here's the reason. And I have no
way to back this up, I mean, other than you
know what they're telling me here in these in these
articles and everything I've read through NASA. You're very limited
with you know, the the ability to care are your
own air, your air supply. Let's say that you get
in this rover and you travel. They've got it. They've
(19:05):
got a minimum distance. And I'm gonna flip through as
we're talking here, because there's a there's a minimum distances
that are a maximum distances they could travel. It's a
for the pressurized when it's a hundred Okay, that's that's
a significant distance that that has its own problems. I'll
talk about that in a minute. But you're talking about
that's not that's not your spacecraft. That's not how you
(19:25):
get home. So that that's the problem. Let's say you
get one miles away, okay, reading going back to the
lunar rover, the original lunar rover, I believe that they
said that there's a distance maximum of somewhere around twenty
miles I think was Now they've never actually gone farther
than about six miles away from the original space craft,
(19:47):
their spacecraft. And that's because the fear that if this
thing broke down and you weren't able to get back,
they would have to be able to make it, and
they would have to be able to walk back from
wherever they break down. How much oxygen do they have,
like exactly let's say that you're six miles away and
you've got about enough oxygen to make it four miles.
What do you do? You see my problem here? I see, yeah,
(20:10):
that's a big problem. And I know they've got this
all figured out, they've got sol developed. But but the
thing with the the pressurized vehicle is that you get long,
long distances away, and if this thing breaks down and
there's a problem with with the systems within that, how
much air can you carry? And also how far can
you really walk on the surface of the Moon and
carrying your own supply. I don't know how far you
(20:31):
would possibly be able to get if you took all
of the supplies you had with you. I know you're
not carrying the samples and everything, because that falls by
the wayside at that point, but just trying to get
yourself back to safety, which would be your spacecraft. How
far could you get back? I mean, if you take
that distance, but if it has a hundred and forty
four miles range, half of that is what something seventies
(20:51):
something seventy two miles, so you could be potentially seventy
two miles. They wouldn't push it that far, but you
could be seventy two miles away to walk seventy two
miles to get back. No, I'm probably gonna die on
the moon. See see what I'm saying. I see what
you're saying. But I think the valid point. But you
also brought up the redundancy thing. Yes, and there's so
much redundancy built into these that it's it's safe. It
(21:14):
really is safe. But this is serious business, guy, I mean,
it's you say it's safe. I only disagree because I
believe it's as safe as it can be, which is
still tremendously unsafe. My friend. Let us not forget we're
strapping people to a rocket correct and shooting them. You know,
it's it's a long way. It's not safe to get there,
you know. I mean, you're taking risks right from the
(21:35):
point the rockets at night. Um. But I would still
love to do it, I you know what, I would
love to do it also, but I would always have
that fear in mind that I'm gonna be walking back
to the to the spacecraft. So I don't think I
would venture too far. Really, man, you're gonna stay in
the spaceship. I would, you know what, I would, I
would go a safe walking distance in it. I know
(21:56):
it sounds it sounds like an old man or something, right, No, No,
I like maintain line a site with the spaceship basically, yeah, exactly.
I don't know if I would, uh, you know, get
myself to the point where you can't see the space
space spacecraft and and something's going wrong. Well, I don't
want to end this on a down note, but I
do have a maybe a little bit of good news
(22:16):
for you with that. With that sobering, well it it
shouldn't cheer you up, but I fear that it will.
Uh NASA and uh the current administration having some some
funding readjustments, so our plan to get to the Moon
that that we have been working on earlier and and
actually during which our article on the site was written,
(22:39):
may not be the same. So you probably won't have
to worry anytime soon about getting drafted to drive that rover. Yeah.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun, right, because it
would be fun. I agree, But did you do it
in the desert on Earth? You know? I would? I would,
I would, but um, you're in a different ballpark when
you when the car breaks down in southing, he can't breathe.
(23:01):
That's that's dramatic. But you know what I mean. You know,
you're you're trying to hoof it back ten miles and
you've got six miles worth of oxygen. Now you can
jump a lot farther in the moon too, you could
go a lot. You can kind of po go back.
Maybe I could just kind of float horizontal to the
surface and you could push me. What I would use
my oxygen so much faster than you. Maybe you had
(23:22):
more than me. You would leave me there. Man. They
would say, there's a dead astronaut four miles away from
the rover, and another one somehow floated to safety. One
floated to safety. I guess I guess we're done now, right,
So yeah, that's about it. That's my unfounded fear. That's
you know, we can ended on unfounded fear. How about
the listener mail love listener mail? All right? Scott so
(23:45):
Vi sent a writes in and says, hi, guys, it's vicente.
He said some other stuff too. He said that he
listen to our podcast about the Loreans and he wanted
to very play give us a correction on the timeline.
The movie Back to the Future was released in nineteen
eighty five, long after the brand had gone belly up.
(24:07):
But in nineteen eighty not in nineteen eighty one. The
car was used because of its looks, not as a
marketing strategy by DMC. The fact that the brand was
no longer around was a major point in choosing the
vehicle because the studio, he says, could do whatever they
wanted without having the fear lawyers for suing them from
misrepresentation or copyright infringement. That's interesting. I thought. I thought
(24:29):
that possibly the film was shot, you know how it's
shot two years beforehand or three years beforehand. I thought
maybe there was a chance that that the uh, the
company is still around at that point, but on the
tail line of you know, going out of business. Um
interesting to know that, you know, it's never around when
the movie was was released, and you know, either way,
that's I think the most interesting point because that seems
(24:53):
pretty clever on the movie makers part to continue to
use that vehicle or yeah, I agree, I agree, and
they're able to do what they want with it. I've
got something that's incredibly related that this is just by chance.
I was gonna save this for another podcast, but I'm
gonna I'm gonna let it fly right now. One week ago,
I spotted a DeLorean right here in Buckhead, which on
(25:15):
on the road, which is kind of unusual because usually
see him in and I see them in garages and
barns and things like that. This is kind of crazy.
It's it's right here in Buckett. It was in a
parking lot in a shopping center. Look beautiful, by the way,
a nice shiny um, the original stainless steel. It had
a Fulton County plates that's Georgia. Yeah, probably Atlanta. The
(25:37):
license plate was mic fly one. Yeah. I thought that
was pretty cool. It was really neat. It was in
good shape as far as I could see exter or anyways.
But I drove by it twice. I just, you know,
because that's me and uh. I didn't want to get
out and peeking just in case the owner came back
and was angry or something. But I wrote down the
license because I figured I wanted to remember this for
you know, another podcast, and here we are talking about
(25:58):
Deloran again. A shout out to McFly one there. Yeah,
that's right, if he or she's listening in the Buckhead area.
How do you do a nice car? Nice nice cars
while we have to sit and UH. To all our
listeners out there, you guys, thanks so much for tuning in.
If you happen to be an astronaut and we got
something wrong and we we do apologize UM, but also
(26:20):
thanks for listening and whether or not you're an astro
or not. If you have any suggestions for upcoming episodes,
topics or anecdotes which we love UH, then send us
an email at high Speed stuff at how stuff work
dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as
(26:41):
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
The house Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download
it today on iTunes
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how stuff works dot Com. I am
Scott Benjamin, and welcome to the podcast. I'm the auto
editor here at how stuff works dot com, and my
name is Ben Ben Bowling. That is, uh, Scott. I
(00:20):
usually don't even say my last name because I'm the
only been here. You're like the closest thing to the other. Ben. Yeah,
I guess so, Ben Ben Ben Show, Benn and Benjamin,
Ben and Benjamin doesn't really work Benjamin and Ben. Yeah,
Mr b Sometimes I call you that, my call the
Benjamin Show. We're fine, Scott. Yeah, let me tell you
just just momentarily. I think the vehicles were about to
(00:42):
talk about are some of the coolest rounds. I know
you've been excited about this one since the very beginning. Yeah,
I think I'm excited about it. I I really am.
I like watching the footage of these vehicles that yeah,
the the the old old footage of this stuff, because
it's really really cool. It just looks surreal. Um, But
I don't know about actually doing it myself. I'm not sure.
(01:03):
Are you serious? Yeah? I think I think so. We'll
get to it. Okay, Well, all right, let's let's destroy
the dispense the suspense. Dispense with the suspense. About that,
for any of our listeners who love the show so
much they didn't even read the title, we're talking. We're
talking about lunar rovers today, which are, of course the
vehicles that uh, you're a friendly neighborhood rocket scientists and
(01:26):
engineers at NASA and other uh space exploration agencies design
for astronauts who think, well, the Moon's small, but it's
a big place, and I don't want to walk everywhere
driving on the moon. Driving on the moon, right, and
on the moon. That's that's gotta be fun. I mean,
it really does. I bet it is fun. But I'll
tell you we'll get to the very end before I
(01:46):
say away why I may not want to do this. Okay,
it's here, So we should start at the beginning and
then go through the middle first. I'm sorry, that's something
like that. I saw. I saw some I think that's
from Alice in Wonderlands. Okay, at you all right, So
let's see. I guess, uh in nineteen seventy two, is
(02:06):
that where we really well, I guess we could start
one year earlier, because that's the end of the program. Really. Yeah,
poly missions you're probably familiar with to poly missions. Uh,
they carried these lunar rovers with them to the Moon.
There were a lot of Moon a lot of Moon
exploration projects happened at the time, particularly these missions here
a poly mission fifteen through seventeen, and those were the
(02:28):
missions that they carried lunar rovers with them. Um, the
first one, the first person to drive in the Moon.
Can you imagine being that wouldn'd be cool? That would
be I would still be talking about it. Yeah, probably,
I don't know. I'm not sure the whereabouts of David
Randolph Scott who was the first. He was an American astronaut. Um,
the poll fifteen astronaut who first has claimed her families
(02:50):
he first drove on the Moon in seventy one. Other
than being a really cool astronaut, yeah, which is already
in itself exactly. I mean to say, you've been on
the Moon unbelievable, but to to have driven on the
Moon even cooler, and to be the first another notch.
It's like impossibly cool, priceless. What kind of these vehicles?
What kind of rovers were these? They're called lunar lunar
(03:14):
roving vehicles. And they're electric because you can't have an
internal combustion engine. There's no air to burn, um, so
they have to be electric. They've got two thirty six
vold batteries. Um. I guess we don't need to go
through the whole frame and everything, every little bit about it.
But basically it has two seats that look like lawn
chairs that are this woven material. Um. I think that
(03:36):
the astronauts were strapped into these with velcro seat belts.
Is that right? Yeah, belcros seat belts. Did you read
about this? But I had heard about this because they
had to They had to hold them in somehow, and
they had other they had handholds, Yeah, they held on
dead handholds. The steerings a little different. Um. This thing
was about the The original l r V was about
the size of a Volkswagen beetle, right, not the size
(03:59):
of a bug. So they're strapped on and they had
some we call them, I guess for the radio. I'll
call them os handles. Yeah, sure, yeah, you know you
know the ones in your car by the window where
you you grab on things. Um, they had something like that.
I believe I would think would be low because there's
low there's no there's no body really built around us.
It's the position is different. It's like a rolling frame
(04:20):
almost really yeah. Um, so again it's electric. Um they
had I think they had their feet strapped in as
well as they didn't kind of float up because you know,
you've got to deal with that space. Did they I
could see that. That's cool. What straps or something to
slide their feet into at least, which is a good idea. Um,
there's no steering wheel. I think you just mentioned that, right. Yeah,
the steering is a little different stick control t shape.
(04:40):
And oh one of the cool things the steering control
I think was in the middle of the car, so
that either side could drive the vehicle because the stick
control controls acceleration, breaking, turning everything. So, um, either seat
could could drive. Which ties into something that we can
talk about a little bit later in the show, which
is uh NASA's nessa serry obsession with redundancy. Yeah, that's right,
(05:03):
and there's a lot of good reason for that. Yeah,
a lot of really good reason for that in this case.
And I imagine having a flat tire, you know, you
several miles from the from the the spacecraft and you've
got to somehow get back. So, um, this thing was
capable of you know, one wheel could completely malfunction, the
other three would be able to handle it. I don't
(05:24):
know about if two happened to malfunction, that would be
but you have to kind of catty corner your way
back exactly. They were all powered, they were all individually powered.
They could all steer um, and they were made and
this is pretty interesting. I thought the tires are made
of well, they've got aluminum frames. There's an interer and
outer frame. And they've also that they're made of galvinized
(05:45):
piano wire, yeah, which is weird. Yeah, and they've got
these titanium treads I guess that that have a chevron
pattern cut into them. Um, so, very very strong tires obviously.
But from what I remember, I think I remember hearing
that one of the astronauts, it seems like he's a
little rough on the lunar uh lenar rover um one
one one astronaut in particular, And I wish I had
(06:07):
the guy's name, And I want to say that it's
a certain Sermon. Is that his name? Uh Ijeene Sermon?
Oh yeah, Eugene certain. Yeah, I think he's the one.
I think, And I don't mean to pin this on
him if it's not him, but I know that he did.
He he did do some accidental body damage to the
lunar rover. Oh with the hammer. This is on the
final mission on a Polo seven team. Um. He the
(06:30):
hammer snagged offender, I guess, and it ripped the fender off.
And they can't really drive it without offender because the
Moon's surface um is full of dust. It's dusty and sand,
you know, just saying whatever the material is exactly, and
so if they're driving through this, it's gonna be flying
all over him. They somehow fashion defender out of what
they had. They mgeivered it. I'm gonna go ahead and
(06:51):
make that a verb. They used a laminated map and
some duct tape. See qualifies, right, brilliant? Well, I mean
astronauts are smart people, right, Yeah, I mean duct tape.
Isn't that cool that they fixed They fixed it with
duct tape? Yeah? It kind of gives me some credibility
at home, does it? Yeah, a little bit. I'm gonna
remember that. I'm gonna reference Commander Gene Cernan next time
(07:14):
I have to do And I think I think they said.
And now I remember I said, I didn't want to
pinnace on him, right, But remember the super tough tires.
I was telling you about the piano. Why I think
he damaged a tire as well. Wow, I know that's tough.
I know what he's up there doing. I mean, it's
full of craters. The Moon's a crazy place, Scott. It's
crazier than Vegas. So but you think you would protect
(07:35):
this thing awful? You know, just be a little more
careful around it, I guess right, And it goes into
redundancy no matter how much, uh how much effort an
astronaut or someone in the control room or in the
design team makes to create a perfect, full proof lunar vehicle.
The truth is that we've barely been to the moon
(07:56):
in humanities history, So everything we do is a prototype
and learning experience. And check out this segway, Scott. Uh.
NASA has also kind of learned from their mistakes and
tried to evolve. True. Yeah, they're they're evolving. Yeah, that's right,
because there there are more vehicles on the way other
than the lunar rover Um. There's a couple of prototypes
(08:16):
that are while they've been in the works for a
long time really, um, and they've tested them. They've tested
them in a desert environment. UM. First is the lunar truck,
and lunar truck is it's pretty cool. I can really
kind of a cargo is very very UM. I guess
jobs specific you know, it's um. I don't know if
that's the right way or not, but it's not really
(08:37):
for carrying people. UM, I believe too. Can two astronauts
can can ride this thing. But the driver stands on
a platform that can be raised. And Lord has a
huge carrying capacity compared to the Lunar Rover, which I
think can only carry um, you know, in addition to
everything else, I think it could only carry about sixty
pounds of of material like moon rocks and things like yeah. Yeah,
(09:00):
because you know, the moon it's made of blue cheese,
and they wanted to bring a lot of it back,
so they brought for the chicken wings exactly. They had
a lot of well not just a reasonable amount of
space for moon rocks things like that, um, but they
did have a lot of other weight, you know, some
some of the equipment like that, you know, and just
their suits themselves. The vehicle itself. You know, that's a
lot of stress on an electric vehicle, because we're already
(09:22):
talking hundreds of pounds on the order of hundreds of
pounds just with the let's see, wait, two astronauts and
suits and backpacks, right, that's about eight hundred pounds, And
so it's interesting here we shall also point on our pounds.
I know, yeah, that's crazy. Those they're tough, they're tough people.
But also we should point out, as everyone knows, gravity
on the Moon is not gravity on Earth, So some
(09:45):
of these numbers might sound a little a little bit screwball,
like the l RV weighing about four hundred sixty pounds
on Earth, but on the Moon, you know, it's different.
I understand you'd say, um, is it it's like one
night I want to say one six one six. I
think it's one six um. But it does have a
(10:06):
pretty good carrying capacity, I mean, based on it are
compared to its weight um. And one one quick thing
before we move on to the lunar truck, the Apollo,
that I believe that one of the lunar rovers was
left on the surface of the Moon, so all we
have to do is pick it up. You know, I'm
not one sure about this, Ben, you know, but did
you come across this anywhere in your research? Because I
(10:27):
I meant to dig up more on this, and if
I if you didn't, don't worry, it's okay. But but
I did find this. I apologize, that's all right. I
found this intriguing question because, um, and I promise we'll
get to the truck. It's the ultimate garage. Fine exactly,
but that uh well whatever. Um, anyways, the I found
(10:49):
this intriguing question. It was on a science site. It
was asking if you would be able to see the
flag that the astronauts have left on the surface of
the Moon or other objects that have been left up there,
and one of the things and then this kind of
pointed me in the direction that maybe it is still
up there. Um. The answer is no, you can't see
anything on the Moon that we've left there. And the
(11:09):
reason is because we don't have telescopes large enough to
do that. On Earth. We haven't. We just haven't built
one that big. But the at the time of this writing,
and I don't know if this has changed since, but
the largest telescope is the Keck Telescope in Hawaii, which measures,
which measures ten meters in diameter. The Hubble Space telescope
is two point four meters in diameter. Just to give
(11:29):
you a comparison, So this Keck telescope in Hawaii is
ten meters in diameter. UM. To be able to see
the lunar rover on the surface of the Earth of
the surface of the Moon. On the Moon, UM, you
would need a telescope that is seventy five in diameter.
So you're talking almost eight times the size of the
(11:49):
largest that we have right now. That's massive. I mean,
so you know the ones that you've got in your backyard.
They point out that, you know, you're six inch or
eight inch telescope is not going to do it. I'm
so tired of you ridiculing my telescope collections. Yeah, that's
not gonna just telescope. They said that it would require
(12:10):
about a sy in diameter telescope to see the lunar
rover that's left on the Moon. Wow, I know, I
for some reason thought you'd be able to spot that. Yeah,
it's just logically it's strange that we could physically get
there but not be able to see it. It's an
awful long way away. That's what I hear. Yeah, that's
(12:30):
what I hear about the moon. That's what I haven't
been yet. It's a lonely placed lunar trucks. Lunar trucks. Yes,
we started to get there. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. We
were talking about the driver. And one of the craziest
things about this vehicle is that the driver has the
perch right as as you said. You can sit around,
they can stand, and they're almost at the center of
(12:51):
the vehicle on top everything. And the truck has these
six wheels with two tires each, and so the steering
or not to get two bogged down, each wheel can
be steered independently, which has got to be incredibly complex
for the driver. But you know, it can just like
the older l r V. It can go forward, backwards, sideways,
(13:13):
any combination there. Up, it's like the Elevator and Willy Wonka,
you remember at the very end of the movie direction. Yeah,
not to spoil it for anybody, just in case you're
talking about the early nine seventies movie. Ye, again, my
favorite version. This has been around for forty years, so
go ahead. Yeah, And so you know that's two podcasts
(13:34):
in a row. I think that you've given away the
ending to a forty year old movie. Young know, Man, God,
I'm really getting bad at this. I mean to Okay,
so it can it can? This not Willy Wonka's elevator,
but this uh lunar truck can go about fifteen miles
an hour with nothing on it, blistering, blistering speed. Yeah.
(13:55):
I think the LRV was capable of twelve still fastest
thing on the moon. The end will blow anything else
in the moon away. Yeah all right, And you know what,
I just dug this up that it's able to carry
four astronauts, So you can carry four astronauts at a time.
But it's not pressurized, so they have to have their
suits on exactly just like the older one, like the
(14:15):
old one. And that's that's a big deal. Um yeah,
it's it's a huge deal. On neck gets into the region. Why,
I don't want to dry one of these, But um,
if we want to talk about pressurized vehicles, they've got
another one that is pressurized, better for long excursions on
the moon. My absolute favorite, is it? Really? This is
my absolute favorite. You've probably seen this one, then, right?
(14:37):
Have you seen this one? Driving? I saw a video Okay,
gonna I'm gonna guess. Go ahead, all right, do you
want to I'll give you one guess because I know
you know it. It was the inauguration. It was the
inauguration of the president of the current pressis. It was
at the tail end of the parade, and this thing,
you know, it just looked really cool and it was
(14:59):
really cool. Yeah, it was really cool. And this is
the one. If you saw the inauguration, you saw this
this nasive vehicle that was tooling down the Abbot Pennsylvania Avenue.
There um really cool looking thing. But the idea behind
this one is that you're able to take it out
for longer excursions and you're able to do um more
field work on the moon. Like three days you could
drive on the moon. That qualifies as a road trip
three days. That's pretty awesome. That would be cool. Can
(15:22):
you imagine how far you could explore in three days?
I mean, I don't know what top speed is on
this thing. Okay, by the way, maybe not that far,
but you could go at a reasonable distance, a reasonable Yeah. Um,
I'm pretty cool about this this one. And in a way,
this one kind of scares me, maybe more than the others.
(15:42):
And again, we'll get into that, okay, But yeah, the
cool thing about this one is it's it's self contained
and has bathrooms of course, the shower and all that,
has all the scientific you know, lab space that they
would need. And um, I believe this one also has
doesn't have a second pressure life chamber, yes, which is
really cool. And this is a big deal to anybody
(16:04):
that would be doing any kind of moon exploration because
of the dust factor that we talked about before. Um,
prior to this, they would have to pressurize and deep
pressurize the entire capsule every time the door open exactly,
and everybody would be you know, everybody would have to
do this and they bring back in dust and sand
and you know whatever else is out there, um, you know, moon, moon, man, particles,
(16:28):
blue sheet, whatever, and um that's the second time and um,
so it was you know, there's a potential for a
lot of problems with that, right yeah. Absolutely, So hopefully
with this one there's gonna be less possibility of equipment
malfunction due to the surface of the Moon. And another
reason that it's a very big deal to have a
(16:50):
a pressurized cabin that's mobile is the radiation or the
potential for radiation. Um, the the enormous. I have to
be honest with this guy, I can't name them. Well,
but there's this overwhelming number of X factors that apply
when there is an AST or not out walking in
(17:11):
in just in a suit because technically, you know, walking
on the moon is still a n E v A. Uh,
we have very little defense. You're not protected by the atmosphere, right,
You're you're you're not shielded by anything. You're just absorbing
solar radiation. Um, and this is a little bit off that.
But this thing is huge, this thing and then how
(17:31):
big is it? I was looking at this, Uh, it's
like a seventies game show. Um. The specs on this
thing are unbelievable. At weighs something like eight nearly nine
thousand pounds, crazy nearly nine thousand pounds, which, as we said,
it doesn't really matter I guess that much when you
get on the moon, because yeah, those are earth pounds
per pounds, that's right. And it's uh, let's see, it's
uh fourteen point one earth feet high like, um, now,
(17:58):
well doesn't not do that. It's a about fourteen point
eight feet long and it's about thirteen feet why So
this is a monster and you'll see it in the
video if you watch the inauguration video at the end,
where you can probably do a word search for just
for this small pressurizer over they called the s SPR
and you probably would be able to find that just
individually if you don't want to go through the whole
inaugurgation video. Do you know what this one's my favorite? Scott?
(18:21):
Why is that? Because you can live in it? And
it reminds me of a very heavily customized van. You
know what it does? It does look like that. I
didn't think of that when I saw it, but um, yeah,
i'd buy that. You know those van shows they have
in Japan, if I could roll up there and you know,
you would fit right in this looks at this, the
last picture on this article definitely looks like a customized van.
(18:44):
But you still wouldn't want to drive one. Okay, here's
the reason. Okay, here's the reason. And I have no
way to back this up, I mean, other than you
know what they're telling me here in these in these
articles and everything I've read through NASA. You're very limited
with you know, the the ability to care are your
own air, your air supply. Let's say that you get
in this rover and you travel. They've got it. They've
(19:05):
got a minimum distance. And I'm gonna flip through as
we're talking here, because there's a there's a minimum distances
that are a maximum distances they could travel. It's a
for the pressurized when it's a hundred Okay, that's that's
a significant distance that that has its own problems. I'll
talk about that in a minute. But you're talking about
that's not that's not your spacecraft. That's not how you
(19:25):
get home. So that that's the problem. Let's say you
get one miles away, okay, reading going back to the
lunar rover, the original lunar rover, I believe that they
said that there's a distance maximum of somewhere around twenty
miles I think was Now they've never actually gone farther
than about six miles away from the original space craft,
(19:47):
their spacecraft. And that's because the fear that if this
thing broke down and you weren't able to get back,
they would have to be able to make it, and
they would have to be able to walk back from
wherever they break down. How much oxygen do they have,
like exactly let's say that you're six miles away and
you've got about enough oxygen to make it four miles.
What do you do? You see my problem here? I see, yeah,
(20:10):
that's a big problem. And I know they've got this
all figured out, they've got sol developed. But but the
thing with the the pressurized vehicle is that you get long,
long distances away, and if this thing breaks down and
there's a problem with with the systems within that, how
much air can you carry? And also how far can
you really walk on the surface of the Moon and
carrying your own supply. I don't know how far you
(20:31):
would possibly be able to get if you took all
of the supplies you had with you. I know you're
not carrying the samples and everything, because that falls by
the wayside at that point, but just trying to get
yourself back to safety, which would be your spacecraft. How
far could you get back? I mean, if you take
that distance, but if it has a hundred and forty
four miles range, half of that is what something seventies
(20:51):
something seventy two miles, so you could be potentially seventy
two miles. They wouldn't push it that far, but you
could be seventy two miles away to walk seventy two
miles to get back. No, I'm probably gonna die on
the moon. See see what I'm saying. I see what
you're saying. But I think the valid point. But you
also brought up the redundancy thing. Yes, and there's so
much redundancy built into these that it's it's safe. It
(21:14):
really is safe. But this is serious business, guy, I mean,
it's you say it's safe. I only disagree because I
believe it's as safe as it can be, which is
still tremendously unsafe. My friend. Let us not forget we're
strapping people to a rocket correct and shooting them. You know,
it's it's a long way. It's not safe to get there,
you know. I mean, you're taking risks right from the
(21:35):
point the rockets at night. Um. But I would still
love to do it, I you know what, I would
love to do it also, but I would always have
that fear in mind that I'm gonna be walking back
to the to the spacecraft. So I don't think I
would venture too far. Really, man, you're gonna stay in
the spaceship. I would, you know what, I would, I
would go a safe walking distance in it. I know
(21:56):
it sounds it sounds like an old man or something, right, No, No,
I like maintain line a site with the spaceship basically, yeah, exactly.
I don't know if I would, uh, you know, get
myself to the point where you can't see the space
space spacecraft and and something's going wrong. Well, I don't
want to end this on a down note, but I
do have a maybe a little bit of good news
(22:16):
for you with that. With that sobering, well it it
shouldn't cheer you up, but I fear that it will.
Uh NASA and uh the current administration having some some
funding readjustments, so our plan to get to the Moon
that that we have been working on earlier and and
actually during which our article on the site was written,
(22:39):
may not be the same. So you probably won't have
to worry anytime soon about getting drafted to drive that rover. Yeah.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun, right, because it
would be fun. I agree, But did you do it
in the desert on Earth? You know? I would? I would,
I would, but um, you're in a different ballpark when
you when the car breaks down in southing, he can't breathe.
(23:01):
That's that's dramatic. But you know what I mean. You know,
you're you're trying to hoof it back ten miles and
you've got six miles worth of oxygen. Now you can
jump a lot farther in the moon too, you could
go a lot. You can kind of po go back.
Maybe I could just kind of float horizontal to the
surface and you could push me. What I would use
my oxygen so much faster than you. Maybe you had
(23:22):
more than me. You would leave me there. Man. They
would say, there's a dead astronaut four miles away from
the rover, and another one somehow floated to safety. One
floated to safety. I guess I guess we're done now, right,
So yeah, that's about it. That's my unfounded fear. That's
you know, we can ended on unfounded fear. How about
the listener mail love listener mail? All right? Scott so
(23:45):
Vi sent a writes in and says, hi, guys, it's vicente.
He said some other stuff too. He said that he
listen to our podcast about the Loreans and he wanted
to very play give us a correction on the timeline.
The movie Back to the Future was released in nineteen
eighty five, long after the brand had gone belly up.
(24:07):
But in nineteen eighty not in nineteen eighty one. The
car was used because of its looks, not as a
marketing strategy by DMC. The fact that the brand was
no longer around was a major point in choosing the
vehicle because the studio, he says, could do whatever they
wanted without having the fear lawyers for suing them from
misrepresentation or copyright infringement. That's interesting. I thought. I thought
(24:29):
that possibly the film was shot, you know how it's
shot two years beforehand or three years beforehand. I thought
maybe there was a chance that that the uh, the
company is still around at that point, but on the
tail line of you know, going out of business. Um
interesting to know that, you know, it's never around when
the movie was was released, and you know, either way,
that's I think the most interesting point because that seems
(24:53):
pretty clever on the movie makers part to continue to
use that vehicle or yeah, I agree, I agree, and
they're able to do what they want with it. I've
got something that's incredibly related that this is just by chance.
I was gonna save this for another podcast, but I'm
gonna I'm gonna let it fly right now. One week ago,
I spotted a DeLorean right here in Buckhead, which on
(25:15):
on the road, which is kind of unusual because usually
see him in and I see them in garages and
barns and things like that. This is kind of crazy.
It's it's right here in Buckett. It was in a
parking lot in a shopping center. Look beautiful, by the way,
a nice shiny um, the original stainless steel. It had
a Fulton County plates that's Georgia. Yeah, probably Atlanta. The
(25:37):
license plate was mic fly one. Yeah. I thought that
was pretty cool. It was really neat. It was in
good shape as far as I could see exter or anyways.
But I drove by it twice. I just, you know,
because that's me and uh. I didn't want to get
out and peeking just in case the owner came back
and was angry or something. But I wrote down the
license because I figured I wanted to remember this for
you know, another podcast, and here we are talking about
(25:58):
Deloran again. A shout out to McFly one there. Yeah,
that's right, if he or she's listening in the Buckhead area.
How do you do a nice car? Nice nice cars
while we have to sit and UH. To all our
listeners out there, you guys, thanks so much for tuning in.
If you happen to be an astronaut and we got
something wrong and we we do apologize UM, but also
(26:20):
thanks for listening and whether or not you're an astro
or not. If you have any suggestions for upcoming episodes,
topics or anecdotes which we love UH, then send us
an email at high Speed stuff at how stuff work
dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as
(26:41):
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
The house Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download
it today on iTunes
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