General Motors is teaming up with Lockheed Martin to produce the ultimate
off-road, self-driving, electric vehicles—for the moon.
The project announced Wednesday is still in the early stages and has yet to
score any NASA money. But the goal is to design light yet rugged vehicles
that will travel farther and faster than the lunar rovers that carried
NASA's Apollo astronauts in the early 1970s, the companies said.
"Mobility is really going to open up the moon for us," said Kirk Shireman, a
former NASA manager who is now Lockheed Martin's vice president for lunar
exploration.
The rovers used by the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 moonwalkers ventured no more
than 4 1/2 miles (7.6 kilometers) from their landers. GM also helped design
those vehicles.
NASA last year put out a call for industry ideas on lunar rovers. The space
agency aims to return astronauts to the moon by 2024, a deadline set by the
previous White House.
Their initial rovers will be designed to carry two astronauts at a time,
according to company officials. A brief company video showed a large, open
rover speeding over lunar slopes, with more headlights in the distance.
This is "just a glimpse of how we see the opportunity playing out," said
Jeff Ryder, a vice president for GM Defense.
By operating autonomously when needed, Shireman noted, the rovers can keep
astronauts safely away from dangerous spots like the permanently shadowed
craters at the moon's South Pole. Frozen water gathered from these dark
corners could be used for drinking, growing plants and creating rocket fuel.
Autonomy could also improve efficiency, with astronauts focused on
collecting rocks as a rover follows behind like a puppy, he said.
In a separate venture begun two years ago, Toyota partnered with the
Japanese Space Agency to build a pressurized electric-powered lunar rover
for astronauts. They're calling it the Lunar Cruiser.
GM and Lockheed Martin's vehicle will be unpressurized, meaning that riders
will need to wear spacesuits at all times. There's room for both models,
according to Shireman.