Motorcyclists are a special breed, and so I say with some certainty that haven’t we all stared up at the moon and wondered what it would be like to tackle its white fluffy terrain on two wheels?
Microgravity, huge dunes, and where no man has roosted before…off-world motorcycling is still a bit sci-fi, but for how much longer?
To give the idea an earnest thought, the team at Hookie Co. created the Tardigrade lunar motorcycle concept (based off the original concept render by Andrew Fabishevskiy), utilizing the electric drive components from a CAKE motorcycle and building their own chassis to suit the moon’s conditions.
The bike has a top speed of 9 mph (15 km/h), and range of around 70 miles. The tires a solid, non-pneumatics, to be best suited to the vacuum conditions on the moon.
A point of interest, the steering mechanism is entirely electric, with the handlebar inputs being read by a potentiometer and then feed to a servo that controls the single-sided front-end.
Weighing nearly 300 lbs though, we are not sure how willing a space agency will be to take the Tardigarde onboard as payload, nor are we sure how feasible its minimal suspension will be on the lunar surface.
That all being said, the design is visually intriguing, and the build is a unique endeavor. There are no shortage of interesting details to get lost looking at from the photos below (take a look at the wheel assemblies, for starters).
Designed in Moscow, built in Dresden, the electric two-wheeler will be on display in Los Angeles, at the Petersen Automotive Museum.
While NASA seems focused on four-wheeled vehicles for the moon’s landscape, other more effective (and dare I say awesome) ways are available. Maybe they’ll take note.
Source: Bike EXIF
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