Exploring moon

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32459, 20 November 1970, Page 13

Exploring moon

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, Nov. 19. Russia’s lunar vehicle went into its third day trundling over the moon today, showing no sign of ending its odyssey in the barren Sea of Rains. Tass said that Lunokhod 1, the first land vehicle to move on the moon, was continuing its programme of scientific and technical research. The Soviet news agency, Tass, does not usually predict Russian space efforts in any detail, although observers in Moscow presumed 'that the space car would not return to earth.

The eight-wheeled vehicle —basically a bath-shaped metal tank packed with instruments—rolled down a ramp off the top of its Luna--17 ferry ship on Tuesday. Since then it has taken sharp-focus television pictures While prowling around the flat plain of lunar lava. Some pictures relayed back to earth and shown on television in Moscow last night revealed how its spoked bicycle-type wheels sank deeper into the sand in some places than in others.

The Tass scientific commentator said: “In motion the Lunokhod resembles a lizard which tortuously crawls over the obstacles it meets. No cross-country vehicle was a match for this ‘acrobat,’ ” he added. The Government newspaper, “Izvestia,” last night reported that the vehicle could keep moving only on two wheels. All its eight wheels were independently driven by’electric power. If one wheel got stuck in a rift, information would be signalled to earth, “Izvestia” said. A remote-controlled charge would then break a shaft in the drive and the wheel would become a passive roller while the others pulled the buggy out of difficulties. “Izvestia” described the wheels as having thin rims fitted With a mesh of fine wire instead of tyres. $