Roving the Desert: Apollo 17 backup astronauts Charlie Duke and John Young are shown aboard a Lunar Rover mockup during a training session at Tonopah, Nev., in September 1972. Duke and Young had just recently returned from their own trip to the Moon aboard Apollo 16 a few months earlier. With the excitement of that mission still fresh in their minds, one has to wonder what they were thinking about during this simulation.
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It would indeed be quite interesting what Young and Duke were thinking! I imagine that they both agreed that the lunar rover’s handling characteristics on Earth were obviously not the same as in 1/6 lunar gravity. Both Young and Duke are true heroes of the Space Age. I will forever treasure my very brief chat with Duke in 1985 as well his autograph!