One giant feat: the incredible story of the Lunar Rover

Two-seat off-roader, one careful owner, only 22 miles, cost $10m new. Buyer collects

When president Kennedy committed the USA to sending a man to the moon, he didn’t mention taking a car – but NASA built one anyway.

In fact, it built four, at an astronomical cost of $38m. And three of them are still up there.

So, as the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, here’s the story of the Lunar Roving Vehicle: the most expensive car ever built.

Heavyweight aims

The story of the Lunar Roving Vehicle reveals the same remarkable spirit of invention that defined the entire Apollo programme. 

The idea owed much to NASA’s chief rocket designer Wernher Von Braun.

Von Braun believed the moon was a world to be explored – a goal that would be compromised if the astronauts had to walk everywhere – and proposed that the Apollo programme create a suitable vehicle for the purpose.

Packaged by Pavlics

The original proposal was overly ambitious – a sort of super-sized VW Camper, it would have weighed around three tons and needed its own rocket just to get there.

Fortunately, Sam Romano and Ferenc Pavlics of General Motors Defense Research Laboratories suggested an alternative, in the form of a two-seater buggy.

Interstellar hybrid

By May 1969, the Apollo programme was already well advanced and there was little room to store such a machine in the Lunar Module, apart from a five-foot wedge of space. Not to be defeated, Pavlics came up with the elegant solution of a folding car.

He created a 1ft scale model with a GI Joe figure at the helm. Like a stripped-down origami beach buggy, its seats folded flat, the chassis lifted over, the back wheels tucked in and the front set stowed away.

Action Man to rocket man

Building a model was one thing, though; creating the Rover for real was quite another. It needed to withstand the intense vibration of a Saturn V launch, be unfolded by someone in a spacesuit, then operate in a near-vacuum. And, because every 10lb cost a second in hover time, it had to weigh just 400lb (180kg).

Powered by an electric motor on each wheel and equipped with four-wheel steering, it was controlled by a T-bar that could be handled from either seat: push forwards to go straight, pull sideways to steer and yank backwards to brake.

The wheels were hardest to get right. Rubber could fail in the harsh terrain and extreme temperatures, so hand-woven steel mesh ‘tyres’ were created. The idea was that it would grip the surface to reduce low-gravity understeer while throwing off ‘sticky’ moon dust.

To infinity and beyond the budget

Clearly, it wasn’t going to come cheap. The original contract was for $19m, but the final bill came closer to $38m. 

For that, NASA got four Rovers: one each for Apollos 15, 16 and 17, plus a spare. Several training and testing versions were built, too, including a 1g variant that gave astronauts experience of driving the LRV across moon-like surfaces on Earth and another that was delicately counterbalanced to replicate the sensation of low-gravity handling. 

Complex kit car

After 17 months of round-the-clock development, the first LRV was delivered in March 1971. Three months later, Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott stepped on to the lunar surface. He was the seventh man to walk on the moon, but the first to drive. 

As the Apollo team unfolded the LRV, its creators watched on from Earth. Had it made the quarter-million-mile journey intact? Released then eased out, via an ingenious system of pulleys, ropes and tapes, the vehicle began to take shape.

Making tracks

When the LRV was finally ready for a test drive, a systems check revealed a problem: the front steering had failed. Undaunted, Dave Scott and Jim Irwin set off on the greatest sightseeing trip in human history. 

They navigated using a system that monitored their position with a gyro and an odometer, feeding info to a computer that tracked distance and direction back to the Module. Not that they needed to fear getting lost: with no wind on the moon, their wheel marks will be there to follow for millennia.

Craterous conditions

Accidents were more of a risk. Lunar maps were only accurate to a resolution of 45ft, so an unexpected crater could well have surprised them. Fortunately there were no catastrophes, but not everything went perfectly during the many hours spent exploring the moon’s surface.

The mudguards were easily damaged and dust thrown up from the wheels would quickly cover the crew and communications equipment.

Handling in one-sixth gravity was tricky, too: Charles Duke Jr, Apollo 16’s Lunar Module Pilot, reported performing an unexpected 180-degree spin. 

Restricted range

The operational area of the LRV was restricted to the distance Module that astronauts could safely cover on foot – and they would drive to the furthest point before working back, to reduce the return distance as their life-support systems diminished. 

As NASA engineers grew more confident, though, the limits were relaxed. For Apollo 17, the LRV was permitted to travel up to 4.5 miles.

Each LRV was used for three trips – one per day – and together they carried the astronauts across 56 miles of terrain, returning with more than half a ton of rock.

Leave a van behind

That some still refuse to believe in the lunar landings is testament to how incredible the Apollo program was, and the LRV was surely its most sensational creation – yet now all but one of the rarest, most valuable cars ever made lie abandoned on another planet. The other? Destined to live out its days in the NASA museum.

Astronomer Patrick Moore stated that the lunar landing was “the greatest technological triumph ever made by man”. Fifty years on from the first lunar landing, many would argue that it still is.