Students Compete in ‘Great Moonbuggy Race’

March 10, 2010 – There are baby buggies, dune buggies and ATV buggies. But more than 100 student teams from around the world are trying to make a buggy that is, literally, out of this world. Some 1,088 high school, college and university students from 20 states and Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany, Bangladesh, Serbia, India and Romania will drive their specially crafted lunar rovers through a challenging course of rugged, moon-like terrain at NASA's 17th annual Great Moonbuggy Race on April 9-10. The race will be held at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Students have been preparing for the event since fall, designing, building, and testing their collapsible, lightweight vehicles. The vehicles must address engineering problems similar to those overcome by the original Apollo-era lunar rover development team at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in the late 1960s. The buggies are based on the design of those classic rovers, which American astronauts drove across the moon's surface during the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions in the early 1970s. Teams of students are building their vehicles using trail bike tires, aluminum or composite metal struts and parts. "NASA is committed to inspiring young people in science, technology, engineering and math, and the Great Moonbuggy Race is an excellent way for us to reach out to young people and get them excited and involved in technical opportunities available to them," said Mike Selby, an avionics technical assistant in the Marshall Center's Engineering Directorate. For a list of this year's competitors, click here. Top prizes will be awarded to the three teams in both the high school and college/university divisions that post the fastest race times, which include assembly and penalty times. A variety of other prizes are given by race corporate sponsors. These include "rookie of the year" and the "featherweight" award, presented to the team with the lightest, fastest buggy.

A team from Erie High School in Erie, Kansas, competes at NASA's 16th annual Great Moonbuggy Race in 2009. Photo credit: Great Moonbuggy Race A team from Murray State University in Kentucky competes at NASA's 16th annual Great Moonbuggy Race in 2009. Photo credit: Great Moonbuggy Race

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