Apollo 15 anniversary: 50 years ago, NASA put a car on the Moon

at the 50th anniversary of Apollo 15 some enthusiasts, historians and aut­hors are giving the lunar rover its due as one of the most enduring symbols of the American moon exploration programme

Dave Scott was not about to pass by an interesting rock without stopping. It was July 31, 1971, and he and Jim Irwin, his fellow Apollo 15 astronaut, were the first to drive on the moon. After a six-hour inaugural jaunt in the new lunar rover, the two were heading back to their lander, the Falcon, when Scott made an unscheduled pit stop.
 

West of a crater called Rhy­sling, Scott scrambled out of the rover and quickly picked up a black lava rock, full of holes formed by escaping gas. Scott and Irwin had been trained in geology and knew the specimen, a vesicular rock, would be valuable to scientists on Earth. They also knew if they asked for permission to stop and get it, mission managers would say no. So Scott made up a story that they stopped because he was fidgeting with his seatbelt. The sample was discovered when the duo retur­ned to Earth, Scott descri­bed what he’d done, and “Seat­belt Rock” became one of the most prized geologic finds from Apollo 15.
 

Seatbelt Rock never would have been collected if the astronauts had not brought a car with them. Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 are the NASA lunar missions that tend to be remembered most vividly. But at the 50th anniversary of Apollo 15, which launched on July 26, 1971, some enthusiasts, historians and aut­hors are giving the lunar rover its due as one of the most enduring symbols of the American moon exploration programme.
 

Foldable, durable, battery-powered and built by Boeing and General Motors, it is seen by some as making the last th­ree missions into the crowning achievement of the Apollo era.