Written on March 31, 2008 – 6:58 am | by Bogdan Alex |
NASA has been on a tech spree in the last months. Moon bases, Titan and Europa explorers, RC planes, Mars drillers… what else, some new UFO models? All that plus some new kind of transportation vehicle for the “Moon landers.”

It’s dubbed NASA's Lunar Chariot, and costs a mind boggling $2 million to build, Heaven knows how much to operate. It has just been tested by the NYT and the top speed of 15 mph may be just enough for the lunar conditions, though it's six-wheeled weird appearance is noquite a  new design never before seen. The front driving "turret" houses the primary controls: a joystick for steering, and an abundance of cameras and sensors that are capable of relaying images to the onboard screen.

The first test rides revealed some positive and some negative peculiarities:

• It navigated seemingly challenging terrain with relative ease, even if the ride was not so smooth for the passenger.
• The motion of the vehicle was a little disconcerting, as it didn't move in a conventional manner; climbing, sliding and dropping in an apparent erratic manner.
• The six wheels could be controlled independently to navigate really, really challenging rough spots.
• The suspension is tuned sky high as the chassis can be raised a whopping, 28-inches in height.
• A bit of a gargantuan vehicle, weighing in at 4,500 pounds and being far too large to make it to the Moon in its current state.
• The Lunar Chariot is using commercial parts for now—a cheap webcam and Earth-car grade tires that would never make the final draft, and neither would they survive out in the big old vacuum or other extreme conditions.

As you can see, the Chariot is not the cruiser of choice for space travelers by any means, at least in its prototype phase. Hey NASA, $2 million for one? What, did you put diamond screws in it, everlasting NOS, golden suspension system?