50 years ago, today Apollo 15 lifted the first lunar rover to the moon. It is the world’s most expensive car and GM’s first EV. And it carried paper maps, like this one.
• Built in 17 months for $40M, but 2x over budget.
• 1HP, 4 redundant electric motors, 460 lbs., carries twice its weight
• On the first Apollo 15 drive, they covered more ground than all prior Apollo missions combined. Apollo 11’s footsteps would fit in a football field. The rover missions covered 56 miles in total, and gathered ¾ of the moon rocks of Apollo, including the most scientifically important.
• For the anniversary, Earl Swift’s new book, A͟c͟r͟o͟s͟s͟ ͟t͟h͟e͟ ͟A͟i͟r͟l͟e͟s͟s͟ ͟W͟i͟l͟d͟s͟, traces the history of the rover’s development and achievements, pushing human exploration to its farthest point to date. Some of the Apollo engineers recommend that NASA simply brush off and update those designs for Artemis. “If we went to the Moon today,” one Apollo engineer said, “you could go with the same vehicle—don’t change a thing about it.” — a ’69 Classic!
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