The Bell Pogo was an experimental rocket vehicle that was designed by

Bell Aircraft The Bell Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer, a builder of several types of fighter aircraft for World War II but most famous for the Bell X-1, the first supersonic aircraft, and for the development and production of man ...

for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

. Its function was to transport one or two astronauts on the

lunar surface The geology of the Moon (sometimes called selenology, although the latter term can refer more generally to " lunar science") is quite different from that of Earth. The Moon lacks a true atmosphere, which eliminates erosion due to weather. It does ...

. The Pogo never went into production.

The device

Bell Aircraft built several versions of the Pogo under contract with NASA as a possible civil and military transport, because it was intended to be used as a means of transportation on the moon during Apollo missions, as well as an army transport over things like ravines, however NASA decided not to use the POGO because of the risk of a crash, and decided to send the Lunar Roving Vehicle. Bell demonstrated that all the versions of the POGO flew in Earth atmosphere. The first POGO was a single place model with a vertical tube with a stand for the pilot to stand with the rocket engine and peroxide tanks at the front. A second POGO was the two place POGO that was able to carry a passenger in front and it was controlled from the back, this POGO had the rockets and tanks between the two pilots. A last version of the Bell POGO was the "reverse" POGO built with the rocket engine and the

peroxide In chemistry, peroxides are a group of compounds with the structure , where R = any element. The group in a peroxide is called the peroxide group or peroxo group. The nomenclature is somewhat variable. The most common peroxide is hydrogen ...

tanks at the back. Bill Suitor was the only Bell pilot to fly the reverse POGO. It was known to have been tested in 1967 and reportedly in 1966 and 1968.

The "Basic US GI factor"

It was assumed by the US Army that a 19 year old recruit with only basic training must be able to use the kit after a brief chat and couple of demonstrations without killing or seriously injuring himself or others. It was considered too skillful for a basic GI to use.

References

External links

Gallery of the Bell Pogo
1960s United States aircraft {{aero-1960s-stub

The device

The "Basic US GI factor"

See also

References

External links