How Driving On the Moon Made Us Care About Space Again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_YhYBxjpQU

Back in 1969 , the Apollo 11 mission put mankind on the moon . It was a monumental accomplishment . Two year later on , though , masses were get blase . 40 years ago today , it become the lunar month buggy ’s problem to make space play again .

The Lunar Roving Vehicle , or LRV , accompanied Apollo 15 on its journeying to the moonshine in July , 1971 . It was an telling , “ elegant ” piece of equipment , develop by NASA in only 17 months to the tune of $ 38 million . It was light and thick , weighing only 460 Irish pound , and could move around at 8 mph on the lunar soil . Not too moth-eaten . It ’s load was to be lunar specimen to be taken back for study , after having crossed an unprecedented distance on the moon ’s control surface .

But when Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin sit down down to take thing thing for a spin , it was all about the entertainment :

“ Overall public interest had reject after Apollo 11 , ” [ Mike Neufeld , a curator in the blank history division at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington , D.C. told SPACE.com . ] “ The populace was becoming more and more blasé . Apollo 15 provide a radar target upward in public interest . Part of it was because the landing site was so much more attractive , and there were also more TV broadcast from the moonlight . But , the rovers were definitely a part of that . The world took a lot of interest in this raw capability that the spaceman had . ”

The Sun Myung Moon buggy was driven a total of 17 mile . That does n’t sound like a lot to you , but in that thing ? It must ’ve been a untamed drive . [ , NASA ]

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