brent@poseidon.UUCP (Brent P. Callaghan) (02/25/86)
I got to thinking the other day about all those ex-Apollo lunar buggies sitting around up there on the moon (3 by my count). It seems a shame that they were never equipped to continue a roving around after the astronauts had left like the little Russian "Lunokhod" did for weeks (or was it months). The on-board colour TV camera was fully controllable directly from earth so mission control could follow the astronauts movements when they got somewhere interesting. I figure they only had to add a few tiny relays and they could have driven the buggy from earth. A modest solar panel could have recharged the batteries every lunar morning for a day of travelling about. The range would be unlimited. Can anybody think of a good reason why the use of these expensive little conveyances was so limited ? -- Made in New Zealand --> Brent Callaghan AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft, NJ {ihnp4|mtuxo|pegasus}!poseidon!brent (201) 576-3475