Chainmail rock crawling tires, to the moon!

[Etype R]

http://publications.mcgill.ca/report...n-on-the-moon/

[Jer]

Looks like they are wasting a lot of money to do what the crawler could do with a set of $30 HB rovers lol

[Fishmaxx]

Originally Posted by Jer

Looks like they are wasting a lot of money to do what the crawler could do with a set of $30 HB rovers lol

Doubtful. I pretty sure the moons surface temperature is not the same as ours.

Metal probably gives them more consistent performance through out the range.

[chevy42083]

Originally Posted by Fishmaxx

Doubtful. I pretty sure the moons surface temperature is not the same as ours.

Metal probably gives them more consistent performance through out the range.

Na, they just need to make sure they aren't running memory foam

[constantmotion]

That looks like whipnet's crawler that he was working on for NASA....NASA and Rock Crawlers. Not sure but it does look like a RC4WD Killer Crawler

[jetboat]

There was a documentry on the original moon rover a while back... there are several reasons a conventional tire design won't work. The surfaace of the moon is about -160. (If I am remembering correct). For a big portion of the "day" and can warm up to a balmy -10, that's a 150 deg swing, vulcanized rubber won't stay together very long. Rips and tears were another concern, not easy to swap a tire when you are that far away from AAA. The vacuum of space means there is no air to support a tire even with foams it would just collapse. Therefore they chose a chainmail setup for the moon rover and solid aluminum for the mars rovers.

Personally, I think nasa should just get a vendor star and run a contest on here for the next rovers. With the builds some of us can pull off for our micro budgets, I can only imagine what people would build.

[JeremyH]

Originally Posted by jetboat

The surfaace of the moon is about -160. (If I am remembering correct). For a big portion of the "day" and can warm up to a balmy -10, that's a 150 deg swing, vulcanized rubber won't stay together very long. Rips and tears were another concern, not easy to swap a tire when you are that far away from AAA. The vacuum of space means there is no air to support a tire even with foams it would just collapse. Therefore they chose a chainmail setup for the moon rover and solid aluminum for the mars rovers.

The surface temp of the moon has a HUGE range...-150*C to 100*C....or -250*F to 200*F....and you are 100% correct on the foams!

[STANG KILLA SS]

Originally Posted by jetboat

There was a documentry on the original moon rover a while back... there are several reasons a conventional tire design won't work. The surfaace of the moon is about -160. (If I am remembering correct). For a big portion of the "day" and can warm up to a balmy -10, that's a 150 deg swing, vulcanized rubber won't stay together very long. Rips and tears were another concern, not easy to swap a tire when you are that far away from AAA. The vacuum of space means there is no air to support a tire even with foams it would just collapse. Therefore they chose a chainmail setup for the moon rover and solid aluminum for the mars rovers.

Personally, I think nasa should just get a vendor star and run a contest on here for the next rovers. With the builds some of us can pull off for our micro budgets, I can only imagine what people would build.

i would give them a stock wheelie king with bike sprokets bolted on for tires