Comments on: The "Moon Buggy Mission," Apollo 15

By: pshaffer

pshaffer — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:14:00 +0000

Found something interesting while pursuing links
There is a link of important apollo 15 images: http://www.life.com/gallery/62261/apollo-15-the-moon-buggy-mission#index/0
One of them, an earthrise, is like no other I have seen. It shows an earthrise, but is exposed so that you can see the starfield behind it. I would like a copy for my wall. So, I follow the License link and get to Getty images. There is no real choice for “I want to print a high quality copy for my wall”, but I muddle through and get something approximating that and find that for a 20 year license, it will be $1050. !!!
Should this not be public domain. It is pretty obvious who paid for the acquisition of the photo. Who had the right to sell our rights to this photo?
(sigh)… just one more thing in this world to be outraged about.

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 22:13:00 +0000

what was the atmosphere/temperature like back inside the LM in between the EVA's.

From reading the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal I believe the environmental control system on the LM kept the temperature at around 15 degrees C. Its harder to say what went through peoples minds though. Michael Collins wrote a great book called Carrying The Fire where he discusses his thoughts during the missions. You might want to take a look at that. Its worth pointing out that with all the somewhat dodgy simulations these people did on Earth they may have been safer flying in space. The only time a person was exposed to vacuum during the space program was in a vacuum chamber. EDIT: fixed a typo

By: AviSolomon

AviSolomon — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 19:46:00 +0000

The crater shadows on the mission patch make XV in roman numerals:)

By: AviSolomon

AviSolomon — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 19:40:00 +0000

Apollo 15 CMP Col. Al Worden gave some nice insights into the mission at the Air & Space Museum yesterday:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16311944

By: Chris Tucker GOP Delenda Est!

Chris Tucker GOP Delenda Est! — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 17:34:00 +0000

One slept in the only hammock. The other slept on the deck, curled around the ascent engine. Not a one of them complained about the temperature. Because: "WE'RE ON THE FUCKING MOON!"

By: Brian Decker

Brian Decker — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:52:00 +0000

I am convinced that the “Apollo Era” was the peak of the United States.

By: Bubba73

Bubba73 — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:12:00 +0000

I hope they got bumper stickers saying “My other car is on the Moon”

By: Noctilucent Studios

Noctilucent Studios — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 12:01:00 +0000

One thing I have always wondered about, and never been able to find ( despite having had the priveledge of meeting 2 moonwalkers…too in awe to ask the question in the short time I had with them but that is another story) is what was the atmosphere/temperature like back inside the LM in between the EVA’s. I know they slept in hammocks and there was a smell of the moondust, but other than that I wonder about things like the temperature and the knowledge that right outside that thin protective layer of metal was the void. Must’ve been tough to go to sleep.

By: RJ

RJ — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 07:00:00 +0000

My inner 33 year old is peeing himself over those Sting Rays. Of all the American sports cars ever made, the late-60′s to late-70′s Sting Rays (especially the late 70′s models) remain my favorites. Well, those and the Cobras, brought to us by AC and the legendary Mr. Carroll Shelby.

More on-topic, the Apollo 15 mission was awesome! Before this very posting on BoingBoing, I never before heard of anybody shrugging and dismissing that mission as inferior in any way. That was the mission where car-crazy Americans got to blast a car up to the moon and go drive around for awhile. What could be more synonymous with our culture?

By: Jed Wright

Jed Wright — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 02:40:00 +0000

It should be red black white; the car color would still in the middle if it was fixed.

By: awjt

awjt — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 02:35:00 +0000

Not so. The color of the car goes in the middle… where it can be noticed.

By: ill lich

ill lich — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 02:01:00 +0000

Usually when I say this I am being ironic and /or sarcastic, but here I can gladly chant ” USA USA USA!!”

I mean, c’mon. . . MOON BUGGIES! It almost makes up for Vietnam.

Well, maybe not, but . . . MOON BUGGIES!

USA USA USA!!

By: mccrum

mccrum — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 01:48:00 +0000

I think this statement could be made for pretty much every mission NASA ever had. Apollo 12 was the real pack of jokers though and 15 was their backup crew so there was likely some bleed through as to how one should act.

I do know they got into a ton of trouble when they got back revolving around first day covers, none of them ever flew in space again.

By: NelC

NelC — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 01:11:00 +0000

Apollo 15 was less famous than Apollo 14? I don’t think so, not for me, anyway. Apollo 14 had a wheel-barrow, and 15 had a go-kart. That alone made 15 more special for me. Granted, I must have been 11 at the time, but I don’t see any reason to change my opinion 40 years later.

15 also had a really spiffy mission patch:

By: Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:40:00 +0000

Wasn’t this the mission where the guys started to have too much fun, and had to be brought back under control by the folks back at Houston?

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:26:00 +0000

The LRV made all the difference on Apollo. The previous mission had two guys on foot and a hand cart. The crew walked about one kilometre towards cone crater. They gave up about 100 metres away and never saw their target. The LRV enabled the crew to drive in 1km circles if need be to find their target. On their first EVA they drove part way up a mountain.

Best EV ever.

By: Jed West

Jed West — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:44:00 +0000

Coll gallery but the picture of the Corvettes is bugging me because the stripes on the black one are reversed from the pattern on the other two.

By: Mike Richards

Mike Richards — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:29:00 +0000

If you’re a geologist Apollo 15 is famous because it was the first Apollo mission to do real science. That buggy let them get out and about in the field and both astronauts had been turned into fine rock hounds.

The highlight of their mission was the discovery of the so-called Genesis Rock, a chunk of anorthosite which is now thought to be a chunk of the primordial Lunar crust which formed within 100 million years of the origin of the Solar System.And anyone who is a space fiend should make sure they’ve seen HBO’s ‘From the Earth to the Moon’; amongst many fine episodes, the one on Apollo 15 is a great demonstration of why geologists get excited about rocks.

By: Stickarm

Stickarm — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:13:00 +0000

The iconography of motorcycles on the moon is spoken for:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ironskyfilm/4208195605/in/set-72157623056694392/

By: John Delaney

John Delaney — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:59:00 +0000

We can fly to the moon, cruise around in craters, and yet we are unable to balance our budget… then again I imagine that the US Economy being a problem with 300 million some variables is probably a more complicated problem.

Maybe the US just needs to use a better integration scheme. Its too bad that so little funding goes to NASA, those guys specialize in numerical integration…

By: DJBudSonic

DJBudSonic — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:40:00 +0000

My father was lucky/talented enough to play a part in the steering motor and drivetrain design and manufacturing of the Lunar Rover. From what he tells me, it was indeed some serious folding, and provided another example of trickle-down science from Nasa to the streets… so what if they cost $20 million each – we spend more than that in a day on gas for our war machines.

By: mccrum

mccrum — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:36:00 +0000

Here ya go! Yay interwebs!
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/000731.html

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:15:00 +0000

I would love to see how that buggy was packaged into the decent stage of the LM for transport to the moon. That had to be some serious folding and fitting.

By: Andrew Carol

Andrew Carol — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:13:00 +0000

The limit on how far they drove away from the LM was how far they could walk back if they had to.

The biggest factor in that, strangely, was how much water their life support packs carried. They were cooled by circulating water jacket in their clothing and waste heat was carried away from the pack to transport through sublimating (i.e. evaporation). The more excise they performed, the hotter they got, and the more water was lost in keeping them cool.

Their activities were budgeted based on the amount of cooling they could provide. Of course they kept a generous amount in reserve.

By: planettom

planettom — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:37:00 +0000

I think about when Apollo 17′s lunar rover was 4.7 miles / 7.6 kilometers from the LEM. Just imagine if it had failed then. Yes, the astronauts probably would have made it back, but that would have been a nerve-wracking lunar jog. Also, the decisions… do you follow your tire tracks back exactly, or do you try to do some dead-reckoning short cuts? Hope you guessed right!

By: mccrum

mccrum — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:34:00 +0000

Yeah, lightweight ruled. Since they weighed only about fifty pounds with suits it probably wasn’t that bad. This was really the first mission where the astronauts actually had training in geology as well.

By: Hank

Hank — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:02:00 +0000

Wait a second… They were sitting on lawn chairs?

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:54:00 +0000

Next time we bring a motorcycle.

By: V

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:39:00 +0000

Because spacecar.

By: Bevatron Repairman

Bevatron Repairman — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:32:00 +0000

Plus, these guys quoted Heinlein’s “The Green Hills of Earth” while on the Moon!