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The Moon Buggy: Driving on Another World

A Car Built to Fold Into a Rocket

The Lunar Roving Vehicle, built by Boeing and Delco for NASA, had to fold into a compact package small enough to fit in a storage bay on the side of the Apollo lunar module, then unfold and deploy on the moon's surface using spring-loaded hinges. Astronauts practiced the unfolding procedure for hours on Earth, since there was no way to fix a jammed hinge once the mission reached the moon.

Apollo 15: The First Drive on the Moon

Astronauts David Scott and James Irwin drove the first moon buggy across the lunar surface during the Apollo 15 mission in July 1971, extending how far astronauts could explore from roughly a half-mile walking radius to several miles per moonwalk. The buggy let the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 crews collect far more rock and soil samples than earlier missions that relied entirely on walking.

Wheels Made of Woven Wire Mesh

Rather than rubber tires, the moon buggy used wheels made of zinc-coated woven piano wire mesh, a design chosen because rubber would have turned brittle and cracked in the moon's extreme temperature swings and airless vacuum. Each wheel also had a bump-shaped chevron tread pattern riveted to its surface to grip loose lunar dust.

Steering With No Rearview Mirror on Earth

The moon buggy could steer with either its front or rear wheels, or both together, letting astronauts turn sharply in the moon's tight, one-sixth-gravity conditions where a full-size Earth car's turning radius would not have worked. Its top recorded speed on the moon reached about 11.2 miles per hour, modest by Earth standards but a genuine achievement while driving over unmapped, bumpy terrain in a bulky spacesuit.

The Antenna That Brought the Moon Home

A high-gain umbrella-shaped antenna mounted on the buggy's front aimed a live television signal back at Earth, letting mission control and television audiences watch astronauts drive and collect samples almost in real time. That antenna had to be pointed manually since the buggy had no automatic tracking system to follow Earth's position across the lunar sky.

Three Buggies Left Behind on the Moon

NASA built four Lunar Roving Vehicles total, one for ground testing and three that flew to the moon on Apollo 15, 16, and 17, and all three lunar buggies remain parked on the moon's surface today since there was no way to bring them home. Photographs taken decades later by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have confirmed the buggies, along with astronaut footprints and tire tracks, are still visible exactly where they were left.

Racing Against a Ticking Life-Support Clock

Every drive in the moon buggy was planned around a strict rule called the "walk-back constraint," meaning astronauts could never travel farther from the lunar module than they could walk back on foot if the buggy suddenly failed. That safety limit shaped exactly how far each Apollo crew was allowed to roam, even though the buggy itself never broke down during any of its three lunar missions.