Great Moonbuggy Race 2011

This is how it’s supposed to be done:

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This is how it’s more often done:

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This is what happened to the team from Russia:

They did, eventually, push the buggy out of the obstacle, and pushed on to the next one before giving up.

I was amused by the fact that when they hit the obstacle and got stuck, the guy on the team launched into a flurry of Russian I didn’t understand, punctuated with a couple of words starting with F— and S— that I and the other bystanders did.

I guess English is truly the new Lingua Franca when it’s the language used when we have to pardon your French.

I thought it was really cool that Russia joined the participants this year, but I’ll admit that I still had enough nationalism to find it amusing that they struggled. I’ll admit having a passing thought along the lines of, no wonder we beat them to the moon.

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These are some pictures I took:

Again, not the proper orientation for this particular buggy.

Another moonbuggy

Pushing a moonbuggy

Me, playing with my camera.

A took this airborne picture later. I liked it, too.

This pic gave me my 15 minutes of moonbuggy fame Friday. Heather tweeted it on the @NASAedu account, and I RT’d her tweet of my pic, and then the main @NASA account RT’d my RT’d. Followed by a ton of other people.

We watched three buggies end up flipped over in some manner at Luna-tic Curve. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Heather was tapped to tweet the race for the official NASA account, @NASAedu

Off-nominal means of propelling a moonbuggy.

Free At Last

Forty-three years ago today.