One Moon Buggy weighs 462 pounds on Earth, but only weighs 70 pounds on the moon because of the lighter gravity.
Moon Buggies have no roof, windows, or doors, so they could be as light as possible.
Moon Buggies have a turning circle of 3.1 meters.
Moon Buggies go 9 kilometers per hour.
Moon Buggies uses batteries to work.
Moon Buggies can drive 31 miles before running out of fuel.
Only three Moon Buggies ever went to the moon and the astronauts left the buggies on the moon😢.
This is a picture describing the different parts of a Moon Buggy!
The Moon Buggy
The Moon Buggy, officially known as the Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV), is more of a spacecraft than a car. It was the size of a small car 3.1 meters long, 1.83 meters wide, and 1.14 meters high. The designers were expected to make the buggy able to fit two people, support the weight of astronauts in their heavy suits, and go on the uneven terrain of the moon. It took seventeen months to design, build, and test the moon buggy and it cost 38 million dollars.
How does the buggy go to the moon?
To fit the buggy inside the Lunar Landing Module, the wheels go inwards and the whole buggy folds in half. An assemblage of ropes, pulleys, cloth tapes, and springs are used to swing the buggy out of the spacecraft.
This is a Moon Buggy ready to go to the moon!
Wheels
The wheels aren’t rubber because it is to expensive and heavy, so the wheels are made of special metal and have v-shaped metal on them called titanium which is light and strong. The advantage of metal is that the wheels can’t get a flat tire! Each wheel has its own motor so if one stopped working, the buggy can still work.
This is the metal wheel of a Moon Buggy!
How do astronauts use the Buggy?
The astronauts have special spacesuits that bend at the waist to be able to sit in the moon buggies. The steering and speed controls were T-shaped to be easier to handle with big spacesuits.
Moon Buggy Record
During the Apollo 17 mission, Eugene Cernan set the speed record for the Moon Buggy of 18 kilometers per hour. The moon buggy was a very steady vehicle but sometimes drifted off the ground and returned much slower than expected.
A Moon Buggy on earth!
Fixing the Moon Buggy
On the Apollo 17 mission when a fender(used to prevent to much dirt from going on the wheel) broke. They didn’t have spare parts for the buggy because it would be to expensive to bring, so they contacted NASA on earth and the Mission Control came up with a way to fix it by using four maps, duct tape, and two camera clamps!
This is a picture of the broken fender after being repaired.