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
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“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
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“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)