Forty years ago: man drives a car across the Moon’s surface -

It seems remarkable that the first drive across the surface of the Moon happened 40 years ago, when the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV, was taken for a spin across the the Moon’s surface in July 1971.

Developed by NASA in only 17 months and costing $38 million, the Rover was light and compact, weighing only 460 pounds, and could travel at 8mph on the lunar soil.

Here’s the technical description from Wikipedia:

The Lunar Roving Vehicle had a mass of 463 lbs (210 kg) and was designed to hold a payload of an additional 1,080 lbs (490 kg) on the lunar surface. The frame was 10 feet (3 m) long with a wheelbase of 7.5 feet (2.3 m). The height of the vehicle was 3.6 ft (1.1 m).

The frame was made of aluminum alloy 2219 tubing welded assemblies and consisted of a three-part chassis which was hinged in the center so it could be folded up and hung in the Lunar Module quad 1 bay. It had two side-by-side foldable seats made of tubular aluminum with nylon webbing and aluminum floor panels. An armrest was mounted between the seats, and each seat had adjustable footrests and a Velcro seat belt. A large mesh dish antenna was mounted on a mast on the front center of the rover.

The suspension consisted of a double horizontal wishbone with upper and lower torsion bars and a damper unit between the chassis and upper wishbone. Fully loaded the LRV had a ground clearance of 14 inches (35 cm).