Driving on the Moon - Cool Footage from Apollo 16 Mission
- 5 years ago
On 16 April 1972, Apollo 16 launched at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to become the 10th manned US mission into space, and the fifth to land on the Moon. But this 11-day mission was the first time humans got access to the lunar highlands, and boy, did they have fun when they got there. That sweet ride - its technical name is the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV, but people in the ‘70s preferred ‘moon buggy' - was a battery-powered four-wheeled rover, and it made an appearance on the Moon during the last three missions of the American Apollo program, 15, 16, and 17. These vehicles were designed to carry one or two astronauts at a time, plus all their equipment and whatever lunar samples they managed to collect.
"Electric rovers were made to operate in the near-vacuum of the lunar surface and handle the oddly-shaped dust, or regolith, that coated it,” says Kyle Hill at Nerdist. "The footage of men riding around on the Moon is simply hard to believe, it’s so surreal."
And now we get to watch that footage in all its stabilized glory. Created by YouTuber britoca, the Apollo Mission 16mm High Definition Transfer footage was adjusted using the Deshaker v2.5 filter for VirtualDub 1.9.9.
More than 40 years ago, and it's still cooler than anything most of us will ever do.
Apollo 16 Mission Objective -
Three primary objectives were (1) to inspect, survey, and sample materials and surface features at a selected landing site in the Descartes region; (2) emplace and activate surface experiments; and (3) conduct in-flight experiments and photographic tasks from lunar orbit. Additional objectives included performance of experiments requiring zero gravity and engineering evaluation of spacecraft and equipment.
The Descartes landing site is in a highlands region of the moon's southeast quadrant, characterized by hilly, grooved, furrowed terrain. It was selected as an outstanding location for sampling two volcanic constructional units of the highlands – the Cayley formation and the Kant Plateau. The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, or ALSEP, was the fourth such station to become operational after Apollos 12, 14 and 15.
Orbital science experiments were concentrated in an array of instruments and cameras in the scientific instrument module, or SIM, bay. Handheld Hasselblad 70mm still and Mauer 16mm motion cameras were used by the crew. Minor changes in surface extravehicular activity, or EVA, equipment were evaluated – a stronger clutch spring in the television camera drive mechanism to eliminate aiming problems experienced on Apollo 15, longer seat belts on the Lunar Roving Vehicle for better astronaut retention, continuous fluting of drill bits to eliminate bit binding due to extracta jamming, and the addition of a treadle and jack to aid in drill core removal from the lunar subsurface.
Music: Mighty Mouse's Moon Shot by Dhruva Aliman
https://dhruvaaliman.bandcamp.com/album/hello-moon
http://www.dhruvaaliman.com/
"Electric rovers were made to operate in the near-vacuum of the lunar surface and handle the oddly-shaped dust, or regolith, that coated it,” says Kyle Hill at Nerdist. "The footage of men riding around on the Moon is simply hard to believe, it’s so surreal."
And now we get to watch that footage in all its stabilized glory. Created by YouTuber britoca, the Apollo Mission 16mm High Definition Transfer footage was adjusted using the Deshaker v2.5 filter for VirtualDub 1.9.9.
More than 40 years ago, and it's still cooler than anything most of us will ever do.
Apollo 16 Mission Objective -
Three primary objectives were (1) to inspect, survey, and sample materials and surface features at a selected landing site in the Descartes region; (2) emplace and activate surface experiments; and (3) conduct in-flight experiments and photographic tasks from lunar orbit. Additional objectives included performance of experiments requiring zero gravity and engineering evaluation of spacecraft and equipment.
The Descartes landing site is in a highlands region of the moon's southeast quadrant, characterized by hilly, grooved, furrowed terrain. It was selected as an outstanding location for sampling two volcanic constructional units of the highlands – the Cayley formation and the Kant Plateau. The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, or ALSEP, was the fourth such station to become operational after Apollos 12, 14 and 15.
Orbital science experiments were concentrated in an array of instruments and cameras in the scientific instrument module, or SIM, bay. Handheld Hasselblad 70mm still and Mauer 16mm motion cameras were used by the crew. Minor changes in surface extravehicular activity, or EVA, equipment were evaluated – a stronger clutch spring in the television camera drive mechanism to eliminate aiming problems experienced on Apollo 15, longer seat belts on the Lunar Roving Vehicle for better astronaut retention, continuous fluting of drill bits to eliminate bit binding due to extracta jamming, and the addition of a treadle and jack to aid in drill core removal from the lunar subsurface.
Music: Mighty Mouse's Moon Shot by Dhruva Aliman
https://dhruvaaliman.bandcamp.com/album/hello-moon
http://www.dhruvaaliman.com/