For nineteen years, an annual racing competition has shown students’ skills in design and engineering.  This race is not like any other.  It is an international competition and its competitors are known as “space racers.”  The annual NASA Great Moonbuggy Race was held April 13-14 of this year and our very own Fairhope High School competed against many others from 20 different states and seven other countries including Germany, Russia, India and Pakistan.  Their two teams places 18^th and 25^th out of the 93 racers that competed.  The race was held at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

“The race honors the legacy of the first NASA Lunar Roving Vehicle, which made its inaugural excursion on the moon’s surface July 31, 1971, driven by Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin.  Two more rovers followed in 1972, enabling still greater scientific exploration during the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions.”  (Adapted from NASA’s website, www.nasa.gov)

The race has many sponsors including the Human Exploration & Operations Mission Directorate in Washington, along with many other corporate sponsors.  It is just one of many programs NASA uses to encourage the future generations to become the next scientists, engineers and explorers.  About 350 members of the Marshall Center volunteer to help with the moonbuggy race each year.  The task for the students is to recreate what the first lunar rover was like, and race through a course with 17 obstacles that is a little over a half mile and has terrain like the moon’s surface.  The goal is to get the best time and least amount of penalties.

The students’ challenge is first to design and build these human-powered rovers, or “moonbuggies.”  Our Fairhope High School students learn how to do this in engineering class.  According to Taylor Pitts, a senior at Fairhope High School, it takes different types of people to build these moonbuggies.  Some are great designers and others do a great job welding the moonbuggy together.  Their team this year consisted of nine members led by Mr. Coleman, who hand selects each member out of their engineering class to build the moonbuggies.  Taylor says of the moonbuggy they made, “most of it is recycled bicycle parts.”  She is pictured with her entire team and moonbuggies they built, second from the left.

The moonbuggies have certain requirements for the competition.  They must contain fenders, a flag and simulated batteries, communications antenna, radio and TV camera, like the original lunar roving vehicle.  It has to be able to collapse and fit inside a four-foot by four-foot by four-foot cubic container to simulate the condition in which the original rover had to be transported.  Each moonbuggy is powered by one girl and one boy, and they must carry the collapsed moonbuggy a full 20 feet before setting it down to demonstrate that it is lightweight.  They then must reassemble it before starting the race.

Each moonbuggy is also inspected for safety and they race again the clock, not side by side with other racers.  Other safety measures include the requirement that all drivers must wear a seat belt and hay bales that line the drive path on either side.  There is a ten minute maximum that they must beat, and penalties to avoid include a driver’s hand or feet touching the ground or losing onboard equipment.  The obstacle course itself takes the U.S. Space & Rocket Center’s maintenance and grounds crew two weeks to prepare prior to the race each year.  They build it out of rock, gravel, sand and other materials to create what resembles a lunar landscape even with craters and basins.

Whichever team wins first place receives $2,850 in cash from Northrop Grumman to support a team trip to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida.  It is a wonderful prize for these young aspiring engineers and astronauts.  Other prizes and trophies are rewarded as well, including one for the best moonbuggy design and also like “Most Improved Team,” which Fairhope High School actually won two years ago.  The annual NASA Great Moonbuggy Race is an initiative to get students to desire to carry on the traditions of the nation in exploration and engineering.  The mission is to teach students engineering ingenuity, resourcefulness and teamwork.