They had someone on site with us to
By June 1970, two months after the
Low…Rocco Petrone seemed skeptiensure close communications. Both
near-loss of the Apollo 13 crew, tercal. This little outfit in Santa Barbara,
NASA and Boeing had a permanent
mination of the program was being
no space experience; but the crew
presence here, in fact.
seriously considered.” Under pressure,
was testing the land version and
training on how to be field geologists. with the budget cut, with the public
“That 18 months was rush rush
losing interest and the scientific com[…] We made the deadline. It was
rush,” he continued, “a nonlinear
munity demanding better results,
delivered two weeks before the
schedule of simultaneous systems
NASA leaped ahead with voyages
launch.”
development and testing in paralinto more dangerous and
lel. Fortunately, we had
interesting territory, with
plenty of knowledge
advanced equipment
to leverage and lots of
and the use of the LM as
the hardware had been
a base camp from which
developed, so we weren’t
long traverses could be
starting from scratch.
made, instead of as the
Also, we assigned parallel
sole determinant of the
teams where each major
range of exploration.
subsystem had one engineer in charge—steering,
With these began the
traction and so on—and
true science of lunar exthey were responsible for
ploration, and the process
not just the design but
of learning how the Moon
carrying it all through testwas formed.
ing and redesign and so
“For our mission on
on until delivery.
Apollo 15, (as well as 16
“In critical areas like
and 17),” Scott continued,
electric drive, we had
“the shift to a ‘J’ mission
parallel and simultaneous
and the inclusion of the
development of alternaLRV meant that we could
tives, one with a DC drive
cover seven times the
and one with an AC drive,
distance covered on ‘H’
with the subcontractors.
missions. We would travel
We knew we’d pick one,
almost four times the
and we would commit to
distance from the LM, we
the best when the time
would be able to carry
The Lunar Rover is folded up and being moved into its stored position inside the Apollo
came. That’s how we
many more tools, and we
15 Lunar Module, where it will remain until its deployment on the Moon’s surface.
Credit: NASA via Retro Space Images
cut development time.
could collect and return
We did experience test
twice the amount of
failures, and weight was a serious
surface rocks and soil.
Wheels on the Moon
constraint. Every morning, my first
“Further, because of the mobility
meeting was a weight analysis meetThe Lunar Rover enabled the
of the LRV, we would be able to
ing, with the engineers contending
fulfillment of Apollo’s most ambitious
explore three different geological
over every gram.
promises. The difference it made can areas at our landing site, from a rille,
be seen in the Lunar Reconnaissance to large craters, to the mountains; a
“This was a highly compressed
Orbiter photos of the landing sites for
schedule,” he said. “Nothing in Apoltrue boon to the scientific exploration
lo had been started and stopped like the last three Apollo missions.
and comprehensive understandthis. It was day and night, weekends;
Where their predecessors has
ing of the Moon.” The “J “missions,
our families hardly saw us. Nobody
covered yards, the J-mission landsaid historians Charles Murray and
died, but some people got sick. But
ing crews covered miles--a total of
Catherine Cox, were “magical”—
the great thing was, the people were 58--collecting over a quarter-ton of
“through them, planetary science
so enthusiastic. You didn’t have to
samples from multiple locations in
was transformed.”
prompt people, or ask “Can you
fast but comprehensive surveys of
Please visit our website for the enstay an extra hour today?” Everyone
the Marsh of Decay, the Descartes
tire list of source material consulted
voluntee ɕ