if you're watching Chernobyl like I am
you may have noticed in Episode four
there's a little surprise I think you
might find interesting
Moon Rovers
Thhey needed to use a lunar
rover to clean up the roof of one of the
reactors so naturally this story really
piqued my interest and I thought it
might pique yours too.
so this rover was
originally derived from the Lunokhod
program it's just Russian for Moonwalker
basically between 1969 and 1977 the
Soviet Union designed and sent lunar
Rovers to the moon. There were two
successful missions the program was
cancelled and nothing really came of it afterwards.
Then on April 26th 1986 the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster
happened. Spreading nuclear waste all
around Chernobyl and surrounding areas.
Some months into the cleanup the
organizers quickly realized that they
were not going to get people near the
nuclear debris just because it was so
radioactive and would kill you within
minutes of exposure even with complete
protective gear
so they enlisted the help of the Soviet
government and asked for a favor, lunar
Rovers. Now they knew that lunar Rovers
were light enough to get on the roof
without damaging the roof but also be
resistant to radioactive energy. These
Rovers were hardened to operate on the
lunar surface another foreign planetary
body so they had hoped that the system
would work. Now these engineers and
scientists who built the Rovers had been
retired for many years so the Soviet
government brought them out of
retirement in two weeks time the
scientists had two Rovers built and sent
to Chernobyl to clean off the roofs. And
they were a success, earning awards for the
designers due to extremely high
radiation levels both Rovers eventually
failed. So human workers later named the
"liquidators" were called in to finish
cleaning up the roofs. Now likely many of
these "Liquidators" did end up dying due
to what they were exposed to in
Chernobyl but these Rovers likely saved
many lives. And if you actually venture
to Chernobyl today there is a junkyard
filled with radioactive debris that was
used for the cleanup of the incident and
the Rovers are there today. So
not that I recommend you go to Chernobyl
but there's some pictures online that I
recommend you look at it's kind of
interesting. So these were not actually
Rovers that were meant for the moon but
were based off of the core designs
for the lunar Rovers that ended up on
the moon 15 years earlier. So thanks for
watching hope you learned something and
I'll catch you guys later bye
