Moon car

[discovery]

Went to Hunsville Alabama Rocket Center and found this moon car ( rather SUV)

[discovery]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...did it have open holes in the seat bottoms (hee,hee)?

...get it? MOON car?

Ha,ha

[jakobnev]

Turn signals? Those people must know something about the moon that we don't!

*goes paranoid*

[RobertSmalls]

I was hoping for light weight, electric drive, a wheel + tire substitute made of wire, etc. What is this vehicle for? It doesn't look like it's particularly suited for anything.

[honestabe]

Wouldn't work on the moon, the tires would explode (hence the wire wheels on the actual moon car).

[RobertSmalls]

Why would they explode? Just take one atmosphere (100kPa / 15psi) of pressure out of your tires before you hit the lunar surface.

[honestabe]

I could swear I remember something on the History channel about NASA having to develop the wire tires to counteract the tires exploding from the lack of pressure.

[markweatherill]

I don't know about turn signals or pneumatic tyres, but a 'moon car' is certainly not going to need windscreen wipers.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by markweatherill

I don't know about turn signals or pneumatic tyres, but a 'moon car' is certainly not going to need windscreen wipers.

My first thought too.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by markweatherill

...a 'moon car' is certainly not going to need windscreen wipers.

It certainly could: not for rain, of course, but for the dust if you had several travelling in a convoy.

For the tires, the air pressure wouldn't be a problem, of course, but the rubber would have to handle surface temps of 200-250 degrees in a vacuum. I don't know enough about rubber chemistry to know how much of a problem it would be.

I think the main reason the Apollo lunar buggies used metal tires was to keep the weight down, though.