New NASA snap of game developer's electric cart FOUND ON MOON An orbiting NASA probe has taken new and ultra-detailed pictures of an electric rover vehicle owned by a multimillionaire games developer and space tourist, left abandoned on the Moon after it broke down. The moon rover Lunokhod 2 as imaged by the LRO in low flight. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University Fliptop lid …
Lunokhod went further because it could be remote controlled by human drivers from Earth, which once they'd got used to the system were able to get it scooting along at a fair old speed. The Mars Rovers have to have every move preprogrammed from Earth. When they reach the end of their transit, they scan the area, the results are sent to the operators who then plan the next shift.
The Lunokhod 2 moon project was truly remarkable for the 1970s era; it has never been given sufficient credit in the West (having being overshadowed by NASA's Apollo Project and Cold War tensions). In many ways, Lunokhod 2's sophistication rivaled those of the Apollo Project and in some it overtook them.
Anyone who is interested in this stuff, I'd strongly recommend that you view the three part YouTube video titled "Tank on the Moon" (parts 1/3 to 3/3). It's a surprisingly informative documentary. Here's the link to the first part (1/3):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeFCehZlMHc&feature=related
I saw this program a few years back on TV and I took an instant liking to Vyacheslav (Viatchslav) Dovgan--one of those who worked on the Lunokhod project. Dovgan strikes me as not only a very intelligent witty fellow but I'd reckon he'd be great to work with. Listen carefully to what he has to say.
Also, here's another very interesting, partly-restored Russian colour doco, "Object-E8. Lunokhod" that's recently appeared on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=breztPLXWSk
It's nice to know Lunokhod-2 has been found once again.
The rovers only have between 0.5 and 0.25 kWh per day to use for all purposes depending on the time of year. That has to keep the electronics warm, run the science instruments, cameras and radios *and* let them drive about on what's effectively a sandy beach. When you take all that into account the surprise is that they can go as far as 100m a day in midsummer, not that they are slow.
Wallace & Gromit's first film springs to mind, somehow...
Having said that, Lunokhod 2 was a serious achievement. Leaving secondary school* at about the same time it was launched, and now looking forward to my pension in a few years...(Gotta be polite - Russian border only 200 miles away, Gulag not much further...)
*about then, I was struggling to build a two-valve radio.
I was going to explain how to do a google search for LRO imagery, but since you got to El Reg you clearly aren't a clueless noob who pulled onto the information superhighway in an IBM Golfball, so I'll just say this instead:
This is CODE THINK BLUE COUNT TWO MAGENTA ALBATROSS
A government modified 747 just overflew your bunker leaving a chemtrail of thermobaric red mercury and rhodium nanoparticles. You have been compromised. Destroy all your documentation and hard drives NOW and head for the nearest forest; discard your clothes (they are nano-rfid tagged) and smear yourself with baked beans and meatballs to confuse any Predator drones that are following you.
You'll be doing yourself (and us) a big favour.
Not all electrical components appreciate being very cold and can exhibit wildly different electrical characteristics as a result. These lunar bots didn't feature integrated circuits, they were made up of thick boards of large caps, resistors and transistors and the rest and these can greatly suffer with different temperatures and as a result the circuits themselves will operate differently (and generally in unwanted ways). Running a modern IC chip very cold isn't actually running it very cold as such, it's instead dumping the heat faster (through the increased temp. gradient) and preventing the thing from burning out as a result.
I'm sure somebody who specialises in electronics can give better detail than this but this is the general principle.
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