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JOSH: NASA’s explorers are
readying up for a road trip.

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First, through the desert of
Northern Arizona, and later,

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worlds beyond out own.
We’ll take you along for the

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ride, on the Lunar Electric
Rover, next on Real World...

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? [music] ?

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JOSH: NASA has big plans to
explore worlds beyond our own,

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someday. And in order to make
those plans reality, they have

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already started developing and
testing many of the tools

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that will make it happen.

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One such tool is a major mode
of transportation and

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exploration that can be used on
the moon, Mars, an asteroid,

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or other places in the
universe.

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It’s the LER... the Lunar
Electric Rover, and NASA is

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kicking the tires and taking it
for a test drive.

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MIKE GERNHARDT: So the LER is a
concept we came up with to

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optimize human safety and
efficiency while doing

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planetary exploration.
JOSH: Mike Gernhardt is an

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astronaut and the LER Project
Manager.

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MIKE: We have two astronauts in
each one, and we go out for

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long traverses up to...
possibly up to a thousand

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kilometers in two weeks or
longer at a time.

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JOSH: The LER is kind of like
an RV your family might explore

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our world in. But instead of
going to the Grand Canyon,

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NASA astronauts will explore
canyons on the moon or Mars.

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And the LER is build to do a
few things, this RV can’t.

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MIKE: So it’s fly by wire so
you have a joystick and it goes

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forward, sideways, reverse, or
yaw.

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And you can combine all those
maneuvers in any combination

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you want so for example, we can
go crabbing around a crater or

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rock and it really optimizes
your ability to

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make observations.

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JOSH: This is one of the
monitors on board the LER.

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The markings on this dial are
the same as you would find

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on a protractor. A protractor
allows you to measure angles.

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The LER is designed to turn at
acute angles.

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An acute angle is any angle
less than 90 degrees.

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The small turning radius gives
the LER flexibility in its

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movements, allowing the vehicle
to turn in very tight circles.

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MIKE: So this thing has an
electronic transmission.

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And we’ve got park, neutral,
low and high.

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And when we’re off road like
this we stay in the low gear.

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Top speed is 15 kilometers per
hour which is just

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under 10 miles per hour.

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JOSH: Which might not seem like
much to someone like you, used

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to cruising the interstate at
100 kilometers per hour.

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But compare the LER to the
rovers exploring the moon,

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which travel just 40 meters per
day. It would take the Mars

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Rovers 24 years to cover the
same distance LER travels

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in a day. That moves
exploration to the fast track.

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MIKE: The cool thing is all the
visibility we have, the lower

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part, for observing the rocks
and stuff. And then that

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helmet bubble, you can actually
lay down there and put your

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head in that bubble, and I can
drive that within about an inch

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or two of any rock that your
interested in. That’s

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actually closer than you can
really get your helmet on this

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suit, without falling down.

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JOSH: And because the
astronauts can sleep in it,

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it allows for much more
exploration in a shorter

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amount of time.

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MIKE: And then instead of
having to come home every night

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to a hab or your lander, you
can sleep in the vehicle and

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keep going. And that allows us,
you know, much more

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efficiency on the exploration
on the moon.

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And it’s very relevant to the
Mars forward work, where you go

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to Mars you want to have some
mobility.

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It’s like if you landed here on
Earth in the middle of west

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Texas, and could only travel 10
kilometers, you’d have a very

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different view of the Earth
than if you could travel

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hundreds of kilometers.

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JOSH: This is major advancement
over Rovers used during the

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Apollo mission. Back then,
Astronauts could only go as

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far as ten kilometers... which
is how far they could walk in

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their space suits, back to the
lander, in the event of a

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rover brake down. With the
Pressurized LER, astronauts can

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go almost 250 kilometers.

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That’s 25 times the exploration
power as compared to Apollo.

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And since NASA plans to employ
two LER’s for each mission,

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it makes exploration even safer
for astronauts.

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MIKE: If one of the rovers
fails, all four crew can get

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into the other one and come
home, so we have built in

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redundancy on the way out.

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JOSH: In August and September,
2009, NASA sent LER to the

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Northern Deserts of Arizona to
do a mission similar to one

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Astronauts would conduct on the
moon. LER was the centerpiece

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at this event, known as Desert
RATS,

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Research and Technology
Studies...

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The idea was to put LER to the
test, running a mission with

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two astronauts, running from
base camp, hundreds of

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kilometers into the desert and
back again, doing various

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activities, analogous to the
kinds of things astronauts

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would have to do on the moon or
Mars.

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Each day, the astronauts did
three to four short walks out

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of the rover, similar to the
Extra-Vehicular Activities,

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or EVAs they would do on the
surface of the moon

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or another planet.
MIKE: On the back of the

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vehicle, we have what we call
suit ports.

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You can think of these as step
in space suits. And we

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basically just open a hatch
inside the vehicle.

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We open the back hatch to the
suit and then we step

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in the suit. We have electric
actuaries that close all these

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things up, we do leak checks,
and literally 10 minutes later

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we’re boots on the surface of
the moon.

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So that’s a huge break through.

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That allows us to do these
short space walks.

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JOSH: Compare that to EVAs on
the space station, where it

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takes 6 hours or longer to get
out. So for a 2 hour space

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walk, Astronauts have to spend
8 hours in the space suit.

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MIKE: It really kind of beats
you up, because it’s stiff as a

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board. But if you do a half an
hour in, an hour out, half an

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hour in, you know, short
EVAs, it doesn’t have

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that cumulative effect on you.

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JOSH: This years’ Desert Rats
event was supposed to be

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just like the real thing.

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MIKE: We are running them like
a real mission. We have a

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timeline, we have capcoms, we
have science backrooms,

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and we are a very high fidelity
simulation of a real mission.

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JOSH: The tests went really
well. Mike and the crew

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emerged from the LER after 14
days,

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the mission was a huge success.

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You can learn more about LER at
www.nasa.gov.

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? [music] ?

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