History
The concept of a lunar rover predated Apollo, with a 1952–1954 series in Collier's Weekly magazine by Wernher von Braun and others, "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!" In this, von Braun, who had come to America from Germany under Operation Paperclip and was a leader at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, described a six-week stay on the Moon, featuring 10-ton tractor trailers for moving supplies.
In 1956, Mieczyslaw G. Bekker, a native of Poland and then a professor at the University of Michigan and a consultant to the Land Locomotion Laboratory at the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive Command, published two books on land locomotion. These books provided much of the theoretical base for future lunar vehicle development.
Read more about this topic: Lunar Roving Vehicle
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The history of medicine is the history of the unusual.”
—Robert M. Fresco, and Jack Arnold. Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll)