Fascinating typed manuscript from rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth entitled “The Moon Car,” two pages, 8.5 x 9, dated 1957, signed at the conclusion in blue ink, “H. Oberth.” The manuscript, which contains Oberth’s prescient thoughts on a potential moon-landing and the best course of action to explore its terrain, reads: “I assume that the Moon expedition has covered the 384,000 km (238,000 miles) from the space station to the Earth's satellite and has carried out the none-too-easy landing on its surface. The crew has survived its many trials and excitements, has taken the first historic steps on lunar soil, and has made a few cautious moves in the immediate neighborhood of its ship.
The explorers will not have to go far to find a whole series of problems. The nature of the Moon's surface, the rocks lying about the more or less thick layer of dust covering everything will, as far as our knowledge goes, be found within a few hundred miles.
But the day will dawn when the work to be done close at hand is over and the point in the scheduled program will be reached where more distant goals are involved. There are many phenomena on the Moon's surface which cannot be explained until a Moon expedition has landed. Its members will not be able to do much on foot because the things they wish to investigate are widely scattered over the Moon's surface. Even if a particularly favorable place is chosen for the landing, hundreds of miles will have to be covered. Not to explore but merely to stay at the landing point and be satisfied with the first steps around it would be to throw away all the money spent on the expedition.
When an expedition on the Earth proposes to reconnoiter unexplored territory, it unloads the helicopters it has brought, assembled them, and sends some men with good eyes (and better field glasses) to have a look around. Fixed-wing aircraft are usually brought along as well so that communication with civilization can be maintained, even in the deepest jungle, and outgoing and incoming mail can be handled. Much progress has been made since the adventurous and laborious journeys made by explorers at the end of the last century.
Aerial surveys will not be necessary on the Moon. They will have been made with space telescopes before the landing. Moreover, it would be impossible to fly aircraft on the Moon because its atmosphere (if the residual gases there deserve the term) is far too rarefied.
The only thing to be done, therefore, is to travel over its surface. But there is a snap even here. The expedition can- not just take a jeep; unload it, and start it up, and be off. The normal internal-combustion engine needs oxygen from the air, and there is not air on the Moon.
A special vehicle must be designed and built. Somebody once suggested a kind of manually operated car on the lines of children's tricycles, which could be started moving in a cumbrous way by ‘pumping’ with both arms. Such a contraption would be very tiring for the Moon travelers.
Wernher von Braun provided his Moon expedition with caterpillar-track vehicles resembling tanks; this is far better. But what happens when His Moon explorers come to a wide cleft or a deep chasm? There are plenty of cracks and crevices on the Moon's surface, and the author himself has pointed out in his book how difficult and time-wasting travel would be with the tracked vehicles he suggests.
None of these ideas and plans satisfied me, so I produced my own design. My machine can travel on land or fly, though it would perhaps be better to say it can run on the ground and hop. It can even make quite big jumps in order to make movement over cracks and crevices easier and give a better view from above.
A Moon expedition able to make big jumps will be very well off. It will be highly mobile, able to move about in comfort and to travel in long kangaroo leaps at high speed over the virgin wastes. We may compare this form of travel with flying, or call it ‘a hop, skip, and jump.’ In fine condition.
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