moonbuggy

NASA cycles through another Great Moonbuggy Race

It may be more than 40 years since NASA last put a man on the moon, but those Apollo missions continue to serve as a driving force for some aspiring engineers.

On Friday and Saturday, the space agency hosted its 20th annual Great Moonbuggy Race. For these competitions, entrants from colleges and high schools have to to design, build, and race lightweight, human-powered vehicles -- think pedicabs on steroids -- that a pair of riders then must muscle over a half-mile course designed to simulate the lunar surface. NASA says that the "race teams face many of the same … Read more

NASA MoonBuggy race swept by Puerto Ricans

The space shuttle program may be drawing to a close, but a little bit to the south of the Kennedy Space Center, some young Puerto Ricans could represent our greatest hope for the future of the space program.

Teams from the island territory swept the top honors in NASA's 18th annual Great Moonbuggy Race held over the weekend. Teams representing Teodoro Aguilar Mora Vocational High School of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, took the top two places in the high school division, and the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao won its second straight title in the college division.

NASA describes the competition as challenging "students around the world to build and race lightweight, human-powered buggies--demonstrating the same innovation and can-do spirit that put the first Apollo-era lunar rover on the moon four decades ago." Check out this footage:… Read more

Photos: NASA's moonbuggy stakes

It's been a long hiatus since the last time a human strode across the lunar terrain, and we're still some years out from the next planned mission to the moon.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't tinker around with notions of how astronauts in the not-too-distant future might get around the Sea of Tranquility or some other lunar destination. That's part of the driving force behind NASA's Great Moonbuggy Race, an annual event geared toward college and high school students.

The mission: design and build a lightweight, human-powered buggy, then race it around a … Read more