Three essential pieces of equipment on any moon
landing appear in this image. The Lunar Rover, which
has been likened to "a spacecraft on wheels," carried
a navigation computer, communication systems, tools,
maps, and, of course, astronauts. Though it traveled
at a top speed of just seven mph, at each bump the
wire-wheeled vehicle (shown here with Lunar Module
pilot Charles Duke) took flight because of the moon's
low gravity, which is but one-sixth that on Earth. To
the rover's right is the Lunar Module, giving a good
sense of how difficult it is to judge distances on the
moon. To the rover's left, out in the middle distance,
stands a square, black object: the Apollo Lunar
Surface Experiments Package. One of the instruments in
the ALSEP was a seismometer, which recorded everything
from meteor strikes to the crash landings of spent
Lunar Modules and Saturn boosters. The panorama was
taken by Commander John Young.
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