School boy daydreams

Photo info: AQM-60 Kingfisher anti-missile system test missile circa 1958 no photo credit visible

Another scan from the archive, a fairly standard press shot a little short on background info. The main attraction of this photo is that the Kingfisher Missile seems to have been designed on the back of schoolboy's maths book being almost comically rocket shape. After sports cars, fighter jets and tanks rockets must one of the most doodled machines making a change from rock band logos, optimistic scribbles of buxom maidens, sharks fins and sadly swastikas on the blank canvas of the exercise book.

The AQM-60 Kingfisher it seems was developed as test missile to test the newly developed 1950's anti-missile weapons system sadly it proved too efficient and not many of systems were able to destroy it as it sped at mach 3 across the Arizona skies. This is all obviously proves that next time the Us military need a problem solving they just need to contact the best research lab in the world i.e. any year 8 double maths lesson on wet Wednesday afternoon.

The Wild Rover

Pic Info: Lunar Rover Vehicle circa 1969 being tested prior to Apollo 15. Postcard posted from Kennedy Space centre Aug 1975

It could be a weak joke along the lines of Americans are so lazy they even took a car to moon, can't they walk anywhere. The justification for the lunar rover or as it was called all through my youth the "moon buggy" was to carry rock samples and to allow much longer journeys as walking in bulky space suits was extremely difficult. This picture shows the first crew to use the LRV on Apollo 15, on this mission the LRV went about 3 .5 miles and back from the Luna lander.

It's rather amusingly an early example of electric vehicle although one with un-rechargeable batteries and that only ever drove eight miles! One curious thing about the LRV is that it's tires are made of woven wire not rubber.

I always thought even though it's basically a go art that the lunar rover was kind of cool looking with reflective gold covered camera etc and chunky "land rover" wheels. Lastly I have suspicion that one of the reasons they were built is that it must have been a good laugh driving around on the moon's brittle sandy surface even at less than 10 miles a hour!

Like it always says in the car ads one careful owner and to prove it here's the hand book

For more details as always go to wiki