back to article New NASA snap of game developer's electric cart FOUND ON MOON

An orbiting NASA probe has taken new and ultra-detailed pictures of an electric rover vehicle owned by a multimillionaire games developer and space tourist, left abandoned on the Moon after it broke down. The moon rover Lunokhod 2 as imaged by the LRO in low flight. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University Fliptop lid …

COMMENTS

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  1. TechnicianJack

    Wasn't there an article on The Register about this a while ago?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      wait till

      the council send him a demand to clean up his mess.

  2. Darryl
    Happy

    Redneck Earthmen

    Abandoned cars all over the place.

    1. keithpeter Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Redneck Earthmen

      I can just make out a notice... (zooms, powerful imaging enhancement cluster kicks in)

      'Police aware'

      Aha!

    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Abandoned, radioactive, soviet cars!

      Get out of here, Stalker!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Abandoned, radioactive, soviet cars!

        Hey, me too, I had a couple of Ladas some years back. You really knew when you were going over 80 mph

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lunokhod went further because it could be remote controlled by human drivers from Earth, which once they'd got used to the system were able to get it scooting along at a fair old speed. The Mars Rovers have to have every move preprogrammed from Earth. When they reach the end of their transit, they scan the area, the results are sent to the operators who then plan the next shift.

    1. Charles Manning

      Use your eyes

      Why do you think it has been clamped?

  4. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Rescue Rover!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQUwMZqbcnI

  5. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    He could be in for a big fine

    I assume he doesn't have a resident's parking permit?

  6. Code Monkey

    Jawas appear to strip it for parts in 3... 2... 1...

  7. Graham Wilson
    Thumb Up

    Lunokhod 2, a truly remarkable project for the early '70s era.

    The Lunokhod 2 moon project was truly remarkable for the 1970s era; it has never been given sufficient credit in the West (having being overshadowed by NASA's Apollo Project and Cold War tensions). In many ways, Lunokhod 2's sophistication rivaled those of the Apollo Project and in some it overtook them.

    Anyone who is interested in this stuff, I'd strongly recommend that you view the three part YouTube video titled "Tank on the Moon" (parts 1/3 to 3/3). It's a surprisingly informative documentary. Here's the link to the first part (1/3):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeFCehZlMHc&feature=related

    I saw this program a few years back on TV and I took an instant liking to Vyacheslav (Viatchslav) Dovgan--one of those who worked on the Lunokhod project. Dovgan strikes me as not only a very intelligent witty fellow but I'd reckon he'd be great to work with. Listen carefully to what he has to say.

    Also, here's another very interesting, partly-restored Russian colour doco, "Object-E8. Lunokhod" that's recently appeared on YouTube:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=breztPLXWSk

    It's nice to know Lunokhod-2 has been found once again.

  8. Martin Huizing
    Thumb Up

    Once he gets to the moon and realizes...

    ...that it is not in working order, can he get his money back?

  9. Stuart Halliday
    WTF?

    Sorry, how can you tell if the lid is open?

    Just looks like a blob.

  10. John Smith 19 Gold badge

    but the Mars rovers are *tiny*

    Does that not *partly* explain why they've taken 8 years to go 34 Km?

    1. Martin Gregorie

      ... and have very little available power

      The rovers only have between 0.5 and 0.25 kWh per day to use for all purposes depending on the time of year. That has to keep the electronics warm, run the science instruments, cameras and radios *and* let them drive about on what's effectively a sandy beach. When you take all that into account the surprise is that they can go as far as 100m a day in midsummer, not that they are slow.

  11. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    A grand day out

    Wallace & Gromit's first film springs to mind, somehow...

    Having said that, Lunokhod 2 was a serious achievement. Leaving secondary school* at about the same time it was launched, and now looking forward to my pension in a few years...(Gotta be polite - Russian border only 200 miles away, Gulag not much further...)

    *about then, I was struggling to build a two-valve radio.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So they can find a supposedly lost Russian Lunar Probe, but they still can't show us the leftovers of the Moon Missions. Wheres the Picture of the US Flag and Plaque as well as whatever remaind of the Lander, oh and that other lost illegally parked "Car".

    1. Tomn8tr

      Troll.

    2. No. Really!?
      FAIL

      Apollo sites shown

      Actually, the LRO imagery of the Apollo sites is available and really interesting.

      Get your conspiracy theory squashed here:

      http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html

    3. Wombling_Free
      Black Helicopters

      conspiranut alert

      I was going to explain how to do a google search for LRO imagery, but since you got to El Reg you clearly aren't a clueless noob who pulled onto the information superhighway in an IBM Golfball, so I'll just say this instead:

      This is CODE THINK BLUE COUNT TWO MAGENTA ALBATROSS

      A government modified 747 just overflew your bunker leaving a chemtrail of thermobaric red mercury and rhodium nanoparticles. You have been compromised. Destroy all your documentation and hard drives NOW and head for the nearest forest; discard your clothes (they are nano-rfid tagged) and smear yourself with baked beans and meatballs to confuse any Predator drones that are following you.

      You'll be doing yourself (and us) a big favour.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Abandoned, radioactive, soviet cars!

    Green Flag wudda picked him up but ya hafta be with the vehicle

  14. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Coat

    So, there is a use for...

    ...Polonium after all (other than offing ex-KGB agents)

    "The Lunokhods largely avoided this latter problem by the use of Polonium-powered radioisotope heating to keep themselves alive through the bitter lunar nights."

  15. Ferenc

    Why keep electronics warm?

    While we're cooling them down best we can down here.

    The Луноход maybe used some valves but those recent robots probably don't?

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Re: Why keep electronics warm?

      Not all electrical components appreciate being very cold and can exhibit wildly different electrical characteristics as a result. These lunar bots didn't feature integrated circuits, they were made up of thick boards of large caps, resistors and transistors and the rest and these can greatly suffer with different temperatures and as a result the circuits themselves will operate differently (and generally in unwanted ways). Running a modern IC chip very cold isn't actually running it very cold as such, it's instead dumping the heat faster (through the increased temp. gradient) and preventing the thing from burning out as a result.

      I'm sure somebody who specialises in electronics can give better detail than this but this is the general principle.

  16. Wombling_Free
    Boffin

    Did it not have steering then?

    They rolled it right through a couple of craters, and looks like they bogged it in one at the end.

    I suspect they might not have had steering, or maybe even control at the point it stopped!

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