Grand Prix on the Moon, EVA 1,16-27 April 1972

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based paper, printed 1972, numbered "NASA S-72-37002" (NASA MSC) in red in top margin, with "A KODAK PAPER" watermark on verso, 25,4 x 20,3 cm

The Lunar Rover gets a speed workout by astronaut John Young in the “Grand Prix” run at the end of the first EVA at the Descartes landing site. Young is driving toward the LM, with Smoky Mountain on the horizon on the right side of the picture, and is testing how the vehicle handles in the Moon’s one sixth gravity.

“I didn’t get up to any great speed – maybe 10 clicks at the most – but the terrain around there was too rough and too rocky for that kind of foolishness.”
John Young (1972 Technical Debrief, from the ALSJ mission transcript at 124:59:32 GET).

From the mission transcript when the photograph was taken:
124:52:30 Duke: Okay, John. We need to stop out here for the Grand Prix. [...]
124:52:39 Young: Here’s a flat place, sort of. [...]
124:55:09 Duke: Okay. Well, wait. Why don’t you just drive towards the LM. Let me move out here, and you just drive towards the LM, turn around, and then drive towards Stone. [...]
124:55:20 Duke: Let me get the camera. Let me get it set here now. It’s 24 (frames per second). [...]
124:56:58 Duke: DAC (16mm camera)’s on; Mark. (Pause) That max acceleration?!
124:57:06 Young: No.
124:57:10 Duke: Man, you are really bouncing! (Pause)
124:57:14 England (Mission Control): Is he on the ground at all...
124:57:16 Young: Okay; that’s 10 kilometers (per hour). (Hearing England) Huh?
124:57:20 Duke: (To England) He’s got about two wheels on the ground. There’s a big rooster tail out of all four wheels. And as he turns, he skids. The back end breaks loose just like on snow. Come on back, John. (Pause) And the DAC is running. Man, I’ll tell you, Indy (meaning the Indianapolis 500)’s never seen a driver like this. (Pause) Okay, when he hits the craters and starts bouncing is when he gets his rooster tail. He makes sharp turns. Hey, that was a good stop. Those wheels just locked.

Literature:
TIME, 15 May 1972, p. 62 (variant); Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon, Reynolds, p. 189.