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Lunar and Planetary Rovers
The task was far from easy: the schedule to deliver the first flight unit in 18 months was practically impossible, there were development problems that included structural failure of the chassis during load testing, failed traction drives, exotic welded joints that ripped apart, an embarrassing deployment test where the rover fell to the floor during demonstration before NASA management, not to mention dramatic cost over runs, missed schedules and numerous other problems typical of such a complex vehicle designed to work in the harsh environment of space. For the first time, Lunar and Planetary Rovers: The Wheels of Apollo and the Quest for Mars by Anthony Young covers how all the problems were overcome and how the rovers were delivered on time for Apollo 15, 16 and 17. In addition, there are chapters covering the design of each of the rover's complex subsystems and how they worked, and the training by the astronauts using special vehicles for their mission-specific geologic training designed to duplicate as much as possible their planned EVAs on the Moon. There are individual chapters devoted to Apollo 15, 16 and 17, with extensive quotes from interviews specially conducted for this book with David R. Scott, Commander of Apollo 15, John Young, Commander of Apollo 16 and his Lunar Module Pilot, Charlie Duke, and Eugene Cernan, Commander of Apollo 17. They talk specifically about how the Lunar Roving Vehicle helped their specific missions achieve spectacular success. The LRV made Apollo 15, 16 and 17 a crowning success in the golden era of manned lunar exploration resulting in amazing discoveries the LRV made possible. In addition, the author interviewed former engineers and managers at Marshall Space Flight Center, General Motors, and Boeing to get the inside story on the problems and triumphs of the Lunar Roving Vehicle program. Also interviewed were the principal investigators from the U.S. Geologic Survey who trained the Apollo J-mission astronauts and helped with mission planning and plotting each EVA traverse of Apollo 15, 16 and 17. There is also a chapter devoted to those amazing robotic rovers designed, developed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to explore the surface of Mars. After years of research and development robotic rover development, JPL began a program in the mid-1990s to land a small rover on Mars, and that mission became known as Pathfinder/Sojourner. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before, and JPL not only succeeded in landing and deploying the first rover on Mars, Sojourner, but also extended it mission length far beyond its design life. JPL followed that up with the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity which have stunned the world with amazing digital images from the surface of the red planet and undeniable scientific evidence of the former presence of water on Mars. This chapter covers these rovers from design and development to deployment on Mars and recalls the discoveries they have made to expand our knowledge of Mars. The final chapter of the book covers the numerous follow-on programs that were proposed after Apollo that never became a reality until the New Vision for Space Exploration and Project Constellation, now underway. The chapter covers the next generation of manned and unmanned rovers that will take part in America's return to the Moon in the next decade. The book is illustrated throughout with over 100 black and white and 64 color photos, many never-before published. There are extensive appendices, which include the hard-to-find after-mission Apollo Pilot's Reports on the LRV's performance. Lunar and Planetary Rovers: The Wheels of Apollo and the Quest for Mars is published by Springer/Praxis, which specialized in space exploration and scientific titles for both a broad and specific readership. You can purchase the book online from the following booksellers in the United States: Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Lunar-Planetary-Rovers-Springer-Exploration/dp/0387307745 Borders
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In the midst of political
turmoil in Washington, declining NASA budgets and cancelled Apollo missions, the
U.S. space agency made a bold decision to design and build a lunar roving
vehicle to be used on the last three Apollo missions to the Moon. This book
covers the story of the early lunar rover concepts and the winning design that
gave Boeing the NASA contract to build the first spacecraft with four wheels to
be driven by man on another planetary surface.