Apollo 14’s Lunar Rickshaw: Useful, Until the Boulders
Apollo 14’s Modularized Equipment Transporter (MET), a two-wheeled cart, hauled tools, cameras, and sample containers across the Moon.
The MET’s very-low-pressure tires ballooned in lunar vacuum, a documented feature of the cart’s design.
The MET tended to tip, and increasing numbers of boulders made it harder to pull; Shepard and Mitchell eventually carried it instead.
Apollo 14’s planned Cone traverse was 3 km (1.8 mi), described as probably the longest practical walk for useful work and a safety margin in an Apollo EMU, the astronauts’ lunar suit.
On the Cone traverse, the crew collected one of three planned core tubes, took 16 photographs, and gathered 10 kg of samples; the record does not say they reached the crater rim.