How Duct Tape Saved Apollo 17's Moon Buggy

Ant points out a story spotted on Boing Boing in which NASA "shares a story that turns back the clock 36 years to reveal the "key roll of duct tape in the Apollo program." The quality of the photographs from the moon always grabs me, and the duct-taped fender here is no exception.

Re:Duct Tape

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

Actually that's not entirely true. A few years ago we were working in the field in the Arctic. I stumbled down a hill and broke my arm. The satellite phone wasn't working at the time, so our solution was to make an elaborate splint made entirely out of duct tape. It took 3 days to hike back to civilization but my arm didn't even need to be reset by the doctor.

Re:photos

[ScentCone]

Right. They're able to use very slow film - which helps with fogging from other sources. I believe they also stored the equipment and film in foil-lined cases for this very reason.

Back when we really had a Pioneer program

[arakon]

I think we should go back a bit to that kind of space exploration. Boot-strap, Cowboy style. There are so many regs and safety issues with today's space program that with all the bureaucracy it's a wonder we get anything off the ground at all. Lets just start with some quantity, launch anything with a higher than 50% survival rate.

How many people do you know that would jump on an opportunity for a manned mission to mars? Just to be the first to do it. Even if you don't make it, you'd still provide useful information and go down in history as a great pioneer. Hell there is a certain religion or two down here that have people clamoring all over their selves to die for some glorious amorphous cause. Put them to work. Launch those space monkeys up there so they can be closer to their [Deity].

Ammo for the conspiracy theorists?

[DanQuixote]

Why are there no tracks before or after that tire?

Was the photo just after assembly, but before movement?

There's an astronaut sitting in it, how could he possibly wait for a photo shoot before hitting the gas?

I would expect more footprints around the thing if it were just after assembly.

Re:Back when we really had a Pioneer program

[joggle]

You know that's much more the old Russian style, not the US style. We were never so gung-ho that we would find a 50% survival rate acceptable. The US was very meticulous and careful during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. The only fatalities that resulted from the program were the Apollo 1 astronauts. After that, there was a huge delay as they did a thorough investigation into the cause of the accident and made many changes to make it safer (not using pure oxygen in the capsule, better wiring, made it easier to open capsule door, etc.). If another accident had occurred soon after it was quite possible that the entire Apollo program would have been canceled.

The Russian program, in contrast, had many accidents and were willing to launch men on a mission to the moon with almost no hope of them returning. They never got that far though (thank God) since we took the wind out of their sails by getting there first--not to mention their continuing difficulties of keeping their rocket from malfunctioning.

Re:Duct Tape

[sm62704]

Works on earth buggies, too. I can't count the number of times a coolant hose or a heater hose (coolant goes through the heater hose?) has gotten a hole and been patched with duct tape "to get to the auto parts store", and was still on the unreplaced hose when I sold or traded the car.

It may be urban legend, but I heard the military calls it "hundred mile per hour tape" because once in some godforsaken jungle somewhere a helicopter broke a rotor (gunshot or something) and the mechanic duct taped it together, telling the pilot to "keep it under a hundred miles an hour".

They used to seal ducts with the stuff.

Has anyone ever taped ducks together with it?

Duct tape saved my weekend

[Ang31us]

Well, sort of...My housekeeper was cleaning and noticed (or perhaps caused) a hole about the size of a silver dollar in the drain pipe underneath my kitchen sink. The area around the hole was a corroded and basically everything that went down the drain ended up going out of the hole. I live in an apartment building where the super takes forever to fix things, so I had to come up with a stop-gap solution. First, I just put a bucket under it when I was just using water, but that was going to start to get really gross when I wanted to wash that night's frying pans, so I did not wash them that evening.

The next morning, it hit me, I could wrap the pipe with duct tape to seal the hole and it worked! I cleaned my dishes, pots, pans and made pasta on Saturday; it even held up when I poured the boiling water down the drain.

Not quite a NASA moon mission, but I did gain a new appreciation for duct tape.

Re:Duct Tape

[smellsofbikes]

I have taped a duck with duct tape. It was a pet duck that had been attacked by a dog and had a huge oozing wound on its back. We were trying to get bandages on it so it wouldn't get (as much) dirt and debris in the wound while it was healing, and gauze and medical tape wasn't enough. We used a combination of duct tape and vet wrap and basically made a sort of suit for the duck that wrapped around its chest and under its wings, to hold the bandages in place. It worked.

Your coolant system patches must've used different duct tape than mine: the hot water melted the adhesive and it was leaking like a sieve in a dozen km. I managed to get home, barely.

Re:Duct Tape

[marklark]

My experience with _gray_ duct-tape in the Antarctic is that it's absolutely pathetic in the cold.

For this story to be true, the splint must have been applied indoors and kept under clothing.

Re:Duct Tape

[EvilRyry]

Right, I find it quite ironic that duct tape is against building code to use on ducts in most places.

Re:Duct Tape

[conlaw]

Actually, Duck Tape supports a variety of uses for its product. In fact, they're now running an annual contest for the best prom outfits made from Duck Tape. Some of the entries from previous years can be found at: http://www.ducktapeclub.com/contests/prom/archive.asp [ducktapeclub.com]

Possible protection for ducks from each other?

[Nontagonist]

How would Duck Tape be applied in this scenario to protect the pursued duck?

"The strange case of the homosexual necrophiliac duck pushed out the boundaries of knowledge in a rather improbable way when it was recorded by Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker. ..."

from:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1432991,00.html [guardian.co.uk]

Regards, Non.