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Motorcycling on the Moon

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In the late 1960’s we were this close to motorcycling on the moon, which might be the most awesome thing you can do on two wheels.

Built as an alternate to the Lunar Rover (LRV), NASA wasn’t entirely confident that Boeing would have the LRV ready for the Apollo 15 mission, and explored using a two-wheeled vehicle instead for helping astronauts bound around in the Palus Putredinus.

As we know from history, the LRV was built in time for Apollo 15 and its subsequent missions, thus the Lunar Motorbike was never used.

Pictured here in the Vomit Comet, a special purpose KC-135 airplane that undulates in the air and simulates zero-g and low-g environments, the Lunar Motorbike looks to be a very simple and to the point two-wheeler.

Not much is known about the vehicle as it was scrapped after the Apollo 15 mission.

From what information we can find, the Lunar Motorbike has two pneumatic tires, and was extremely light. 

There is some speculation that the Lunar Motorbike was planned to be used in the Apollo 20 mission, but since that mission was ultimately cancelled it never came to fruition.

Source: Moto22

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