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NASA's Electric Motor Scooter
Although I loved the original NASA Lunar Rover, I think the idea of a lunar dirt bike is pretty cool.
For science and exploration on later Apollo missions, astronauts needed better mobility. Several options were studied - including an Electric Motor Scooter. (see test pics below)
— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) January 7, 2020
In the end, NASA used the Lunar Rover instead, but a lunar dirt bike would’ve been pretty cool. pic.twitter.com/JY0HN1XUax
Robert Heinlein had similar idea, which he described in his 1952 novel The Rolling Stones:
...all the prospectors took bicycles along as a matter of course, just as they carried climbing ropes and spare oxygen...The solitary prospector, deprived of his traditional burro, found the bicycle an acceptable and reliable, if somewhat less congenial, substitute. A miner's bike would have looked odd in the streets of Stockholm; over-sized wheels, doughnut sand tires, towing yoke and trailer, battery trickle charger, two-way radio, saddle bags and Geiger-counter mount made it not the vehicle for a spin in the park - but on Mars or on the Moon it fitted its purpose the way a canoe fits a Canadian stream.
(Read more about the Lunocycle)
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