The last time a man stepped on the Moon was December 14, 1972. With the Apollo 17 mission, astronauts Eugene Cernan, Roland Evans and Harrison Schmitt arrived there. After them, no one else set foot on the Moon again.
The astronauts that integrated the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions left something on the Moon: three lunar vehicles called LRV (Lunar Roving Vehicle). The first of them reached the satellite on July 31, 1971. Its drivers were astronauts David Scott and Jim Irwin, the first humans to drive there. The car covered a distance of 27.8 kilometers and it took 3 hours and 2 minutes.
The vehicle that NASA workers called “space SUV” is a convertible manufactured by the North American company Boeing and with the collaboration of Delco Electronics (owned by General Motors).
It is built in golden aluminum, has four wheels 82 centimeters in diameter and 23 centimeters wide, joined by an aluminum and titanium disc. They are steel mesh wheels (woven with piano strings) in which the 0.24 CV motors were each and it has two seats that can be lowered.
It measures 3.10 meters long, 1.80 meters wide and its total weight is 181 kilos. They are electric and the two 36-volt batteries that are not rechargeable are located in the front part of the body. Its autonomy is 78 hours.
It has a navigation system and an information processing unit. It also carries radio communication repeaters, 16-millimeter video cameras with chargers, tele cameras, a 70-millimeter photo camera, a soil drill, a clamp to collect samples, a magnometer, tools, and spare parts. In addition, a directional gyroscope provides information on the direction of travel and odometers on the wheels measure speed and distance.
Each of the three abandoned vehicles on the Moon cost 40 million dollars at the time and it took a year and a half to get each one ready.
The maximum speed of lunar vehicles is only 9 km/h, although astronaut Cernan reached 18 km/h, a speed record on the Moon.
The three cars that were left on the Moon traveled about 25 kilometers on average. They never went more than 6 miles from the lunar module in case something went wrong so the astronauts could walk back before their oxygen and safety system ran out.
The three cars were left abandoned in perfect condition. In 2009 NASA sent a new lunar rover that found and photographed the three abandoned cars.
NASA engineers believe that due to the variation in temperature on the Moon, solar radiation and the deterioration of materials, the three vehicles may be disabled but if they were recovered they would put them back into operation.
Up there they continue to look at the Earth. Now that the man returns to the Moon, will he be in charge of bringing them?
