NASA Great Moonbuggy Race
Source: The Huntsville Times
17th Moon Buggy Race draws local, world competitors
The races started with fist bumps, concentration, and even hoots and hollers reminiscent of a pre-game pep rally.
But after 17 tailbone-bruising obstacles, many contestants in Friday’s NASA Great Moon Buggy Race had flat tires and burning leg muscles.
“We had a feeling it was going to be tough,” said a panting Alyx Brear, a senior at Huntsville Center for Technology.
Her many peers at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center likely agreed. Dozens of high school and college teams from across the globe raced their pedal-powered rovers there through a bumpy, .7-mile track meant to simulate the moon’s surface.
Brear and teammate Jamesky Scott, also an HCT senior, finished the race after their buggy blew a tire and got stuck briefly in an obstacle.
“I left it all out on the track,” Scott said.
Teams spent months designing, building and testing their buggies for the race, now in its 17th year. The event is an educational project NASA conducts each year to engage the next generation of scientists, engineers and explorers.
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