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> Between 1970 and 1973, the Soviet space program achieved an amazing feat: landing and driving the first remote-controlled roving robots on the Moon. These two
by routerl 5y ago
> Between 1970 and 1973, the Soviet space program achieved an amazing feat: landing and driving the first remote-controlled roving robots on the Moon. These two vehicles were called Lunokhod-1 and -2, and they gathered invaluable scientific data as well as images of the surface of the Moon during their unprecedented, and still unrivaled, total of 52 kilometers of remotely controlled lunar exploration.
Wow. TIL.
Wish I had more signal processing know-how to help decode that footage. I'm old enough to remember programs being stored on cassette tapes, but not old enough to have any working experience with that.
- bombcar 5y agoWow even at moon distances the speed of light starts to play a bit. Remote control at that distance is impressive.
- klyrs 5y agoIncredible. At first I assumed that was a lunar record, but Opportunity was in action for 15 years and 'only' drove 45km
- Nikbul 5y agoWhat's more impressive that this is 1970, so remote driving capabilities on that kind of distance is mindblowing. I was in NASA KSP tours, man, this tech from 1960 and 1970 looks weird and not functional today.
- frederikvs 5y agoInteresting side note : the people who built the Lunokhod moon rover were later called in to help with the Chernobyl cleanup. They had experience with remote-controlled radiation-hardened rovers. There's an interesting documentary on Curiositystream about the Lunokhod program too.
- sharken 5y agoAs for results in the cleanup of Chernobyl, they did not fare that well. About 10% of the roof was cleared before radioactivity made it impossible to continue. Though that effort probably saved lives, so mission accomplished I'd say. https://spacecentre.co.uk/blog-post/the-moon-rovers-that-helped-clean-up-chernobyl/ https://spacecentre.co.uk/blog-post/the-moon-rovers-that-hel...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]