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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!poseidon!brent
From: brent@poseidon.UUCP (Brent P. Callaghan)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Remember the Lunar Buggy ?
Message-ID: <1413@poseidon.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Feb-86 23:41:08 EST
Article-I.D.: poseidon.1413
Posted: Mon Feb 24 23:41:08 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Feb-86 08:28:58 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft NJ
Lines: 28

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
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