Lunar Rover 1971

The Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) occupies a prominent place in the history of the vehicles in planetary exploration or rovers. It was an electric-powered vehicle designed to operate in the low gravity of the Moon, and allowed the Apollo astronauts to extend the range of their surface extravehicular explorations. The LRV was populary known as the "moon buggy". The LRV was produced by Boeing, and the final cost of the LRV was $ 38 million dollars in 1971. Three LRVs were driven in the Moon.

In 1971 the astronauts of Apollo 15 used by the first time the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). In the Apollo 15 mission, the LRV achieved an average speed of 9.6 km/hr, and speeds up to 12 km/hr were attained. The total distance traveled was 27.9 km.
The crew of Apollo 15 collected 76 kg of lunar material including soil, rock, core-tube, and deep-core samples. These valuable lunar specimens were brought to Earth by the astronauts.

Another two LRVs were used in the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions during 1972.

The three NASA rovers were left abandoned on the moon.

Astronaut Harrison Schmitt said, "....the Lunar Rover proved to be the reliable, safe and flexible lunar exploration vehicle we expected it to be. Without it, the major scientific discoveries of Apollo 15, 16, and 17 would not have been possible; and our current understanding of lunar evolution would not have been possible."

This model is a detailed version of the LRV using the minifig scale.

In the model you can see many details of the LRV as the color television camera, the television control unit, the 16 mm camera, the two batteries, the lunar communication relay unit, the high gain antenna, the low gain antenna, the pannel control, the T-shaped handle that controls the movement of the rover, detailed seats, two sample collection bags, lunar hand tool carrier and the surface electrical properties (SEP) antenna.

The set includes two astronauts with geologic tools for sampling the lunar surface.

I put great care in reproducing the details of the original LRV in this lego model, the result left me very happy and so I share it with other fans of Lego, space exploration, science and cars. 

Your comments are welcome, thanks for supporting this project!

Best regards

Luis

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About the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle:

Boeing LRV Systems Engineering, Lunar Rover Operations Handbook, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/lrvhand.html
NASA, The Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo_lrv.html
A Brief History of Lunar Roving Vehicle, https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/MSFC-LRV.pdf
Lunar Roving Vehicle: Historicals Origins, Development and Deployment, https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/lrv_historical_origins.pdf

More LRV Documentation, https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-LRVdocs.html