With Eyes on the Moon, Students on Earth Prepare for NASA's 12th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race April 8-9

baalke_at_earthlink.net
Date: 03/07/05 

Date: 7 Mar 2005 15:26:51 -0800

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2005/05-026.html

With Eyes on the Moon, Students on Earth Prepare for NASA's 12th Annual
Great Moonbuggy Race April 8-9

03.03.05

Martin Jensen
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
(Phone: 256.544.0034)

News release: 05-026

They're working in classrooms, garages and shops all across the country
-- and beyond -- inspired by past space explorers and future space
missions. They're trying to figure out the best way to design, build
and
race a human-powered buggy capable of traveling around a half-mile
track
on Earth.

These high school and college students are preparing for NASA's 12th
Annual Great Moonbuggy Race in Huntsville, Ala., April 8-9. Seventy-two
teams from 20 states, Puerto Rico and Germany will take on a course
that
will test not only their physical endurance, but the reliability and
strength of the moonbuggies. In 2004, 55 teams from 18 states and
Puerto
Rico participated in the competition.

The Moonbuggy challenge is to design a human-powered vehicle no more
than 4-feet high, 4-feet long and 4-feet wide and light enough for its
two drivers to carry. Buggies, unassembled prior to the race, must be
quickly assembled on race day by two operators -- one male, one female.
Those drivers must power and drive the vehicle against the clock, over
a
half-mile obstacle course of simulated moonscape terrain at the U.S. &
Rocket Center in Huntsville.

The high-school and college teams participating in the Great Moonbuggy
competition gain invaluable experience that could qualify them to
become
the nation's next generation of astronauts, designers, engineers and
scientists. They could be contributing to the goals of the Vision for
Space Exploration which includes returning the Space Shuttle to flight,
completing the International Space Station, traveling to the Moon, Mars
and beyond.

But it's more than just a race. It's the continuation of a challenge
faced and conquered more than 40 years ago by the NASA team which
designed Lunar Rovers -- vehicles that were compact, durable and able
to
handle the rigors of the tough, unflinching environment of the Moon.
Astronauts used separate Lunar Rovers on the final three Moon missions
-- Apollo 15, 16 and 17 -- to travel 52.51 miles, gather 620.6 pounds
of
rock and soil samples, and return them to Earth.

"The spirit of those space pioneers is still alive in these young
people
who compete in the Great Moonbuggy Race," said Durlean Bradford, the
race coordinator and an education specialist in the Academic Affairs
Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. "They work
on their moonbuggies for months and learn about design, engineering and
manufacturing. And sometimes they even have to make repairs on the
buggies during the race."

Although the moonbuggy racers don't haul soil and rock, they do
encounter many of the same design and engineering problems faced by the
original lunar rover team. But the challenges don't break their
spirits.

"They give it their all," Bradford said of the students. "They approach
the project with the same level of enthusiasm you find on a football or
basketball team. The crowd cheers them on, they get pumped up and
really
compete. They also know what they are doing is giving them great skills
they can use in their future careers."

Prizes are awarded not only for the fastest vehicles, but also to the
team whose design represents the best technical approach to solving the
engineering problem of navigating a simulated lunar surface.

For more event details, race rules, information on the course and
photos
from previous competitions, visit:

http://moonbuggy.msfc.nasa.gov
<javascript:openNASAWindow('http://moonbuggy.msfc.nasa.gov ')>

For information about other NASA education programs on the Internet,
visit:

http://education.nasa.gov

For information about NASA on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

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