dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (10/17/84)
Astronauts walked on the moon -- and drove on it too. We'll talk more about the Lunar Rovers -- after this. October 17 Roving the Moon It has been fifteen years since people first walked on the surface of Earth's sister world -- the moon. But they did more than walk -- people also DROVE on the moon -- in vehicles called Lunar Rovers. The last three Apollo missions to the moon in 1971 and 1972 all carried rovers -- tightly folded up in the Lunar Landers. Once on the moon an astronaut would pull cables to release the rover from the spacecraft. The rover swung out and automatically unfolded into a four wheeled moon buggy. The electrically powered rovers tremendously extended the area of lunar surface astronauts could explore. On the last mission -- Apollo Seventeen -- the rover tracked twenty-two miles as the astronauts searched for geologic samples. If you're up very late tonight or early tomorrow morning -- you can try to find where the first vehicle on the moon is parked. Tonight the moon is at third quarter -- a half-lit circle when it rises after midnight. Look for the terminator -- the line between the dark and lighted portions of the moon. The landing location of Apollo Fifteen is on the lighted side almost on the terminator -- and about in the middle of the moon's northern hemisphere. It was here that Dave Scott and Jim Erwin drove the first moon buggy through the foothills of the Appennines Mountains and along the edge of a chasm called Hadley Rille. And it is here too that their rover -- like the other two Apollo rovers -- now sits silent and waiting in the lunar dust. Script by Diana Hadley (c) Copyright 1983, 1984 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin