00:00No, these aren't pictures from the last Apollo moonwalk from the 70s.
00:08These were only recently taken by NASA at their new and updated Lunar Lab and Regolith testbed.
00:13But you can put away your tinfoil hat.
00:15The lab isn't for spoofing a moon landing, but rather for testing out equipment and skills in a moon-like setting.
00:20The lab is a recreation of two particular areas of the moon,
00:23allowing scientists to test not only rovers and robots on its specific surface,
00:27but also give astronauts who might very well go there a dry run before the real deal.
00:31And that's because the polar areas that have been recreated are much different than those the Apollo astronauts landed on before.
00:36Currently the Viper, or Volatil's Investigating Polar Exploration Rover Team, are testing the new lunar vehicle,
00:42specifically ensuring that its hazard avoidance cameras and lighting system work in an environment that has such extreme angles of light.
00:48The whole facility is basically a giant sandbox filled with 20 tons of lunar regolith analog called Lunar Highland Simulant 1.
00:56But it's not just for experimenting in a moon-like setting.
00:58The whole thing can be reconfigured to test other regolith-covered regions in the cosmos,
01:02including Mercury, asteroids, or other planets' moons.
01:06The viewer's
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