Just two years after the first men walked on the moon, some astronauts drove a buggy on it.

Although astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin described the Lunar Roving Vehicle more like a bucking bronco buggy.

Scott, Irwin and Alfred M. Worden went to the moon aboard Apollo 15 in 1971. Scott and Irwin were the first astronauts to operate a vehicle on the moon and Worden was the first to go on a spacewalk.

As the trio entered the orbit of the moon on July 29, 1971, The Patriot reported, Three excited men seeing a desolate world of craters and rugged mountains below them and calling it absolutely overwhelming absolutely mind-boggling.

Apollo 15 launched from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on July 26, 1971.

This mini-panorama combines two photographs taken by Apollo 15 lunar module pilot Jim Irwin, from the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) site, at the end of the second Apollo 15 moonwalk on August 1, 1971. Apollo 15 was the fourth crewed mission to land on the Moon and the first to visit and explore the Moon's Hadley Rille and Apennine Mountains which are located on the southeast edge of the Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains). The image shows the ALSEP Central Station in the foreground, the Passive Seismic Experiment beyond the left side, and the Lunar Surface magnetometer in the background near the center. Mission commander David R. Scott is leaning to his right and is putting down the Apollo Lunar Surface drill used to take core samples and set up a heat flow experiment. The Solar Wind Spectrometer is in the right foreground.The min-pan of photographs AS15-11845 and 11847 was combined by Erik van Meijgaarden, volunteer contributor to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal site. (NASA)

Scott was the commander, Worden the command module pilot and Irwin the lunar module pilot.

From July 30 to Aug. 2, Scott, Worden and Irwin spent 18.5 hours on the moon and collected 170 pounds of material.

During the return trip, Worden performed the first spacewalk in deep space.

From NASA, During three periods of extravehicular activity, or EVA, on July 31, and Aug. 1 and 2, Scott and Irwin completed a record 18 hours, 37 minutes of exploration, traveled 17.5 miles in the first car that humans have ever driven on the moon, collected more than 170 pounds of lunar samples, set up the ALSEP array, obtained a core sample from about 10 feet beneath the lunar surface, and provided extensive oral descriptions and photographic documentation of geologic features in the vicinity of the landing site during the three days (66 hours, 55 minutes) on the lunar surface.

The Lunar Roving Vehicle weighed about 460 pounds. It could be folded for storage aboard the lunar module.

Astronaut James Irwin beside the Rover parked near the lunar module, looking northeast, Mount Hadley in the background. (AP Photo)

Mike Neufeld, a curator in the space history division at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. told space.com, "It was a very elegant little vehicle," Neufeld said. "It had to be lightweight and had to be folded up in a very compact space. They were very successful there were no major failures so clearly it was a successful design."

The vehicle had a top speed of about 8 mph. The rocky surface of the moon prevented the astronauts from going very fast.

Neufeld said, "They weren't driving on flat land it was more like a dirt buggy than anything else. It didn't travel that fast, but for the astronauts who drove it, it seemed like it was exciting and fast. It was a pretty bouncy ride. Even flat looking terrain on the moon is not very flat because there are so many crater pits, so it would have been a fairly exciting ride."

On Aug. 2, 1971, The Patriot reported, The Apollo 15 lunar rock hounds think they found what they went to the moon for a piece of crystal rock that may date from the creation of the universe.

The astronauts were searching for and found anorthosite, a type of rock that is very rare on earth. Grains of anorthosite found in soil from the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites have been dated at 4.6 billion years - the age of the solar system.

In this image provided by NASA, the two Apollo 15 astronauts are shown gathering lunar samples during their second lunar surface extravehicular activity in this reproduction taken from a color transmission made by the RCA color television camera mounted on the Lunar Roving Vehicle, August 10, 1971. David R. Scott, commander, is on the left. On the right is lunar module pilot James B. Irwin. (AP Photo/NASA)

Apollo 15 also was the first flight to include a spacewalk.

On Aug. 5, Worden became the first person to perform deep space extravehicular activity.

Worden said he was outside the spacecraft for 38 minutes.

He described it to smithsonianmag.com, Black as the ace of Spades, but as Jim and I floated out, there was enough sunlight to light our way. It was an unbelievable sensation. I described it once as going for a swim alongside Moby Dick.

What a feeling to be free in deep space about 196,000 miles from home."

... It was the most unbelievable sight one could imagine, and I was so proud of our ability and ingenuity as a nation to do something this magnificent. By turning my head just so I could position myself so that both the Earth and the Moon were in field of vision. I realized that no one in all of history had ever seen this sight before. What an honor it was.

The astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, 335 miles north of Honolulu on Aug. 7.

Helicopters picked them up and took them to the USS Okinawa.

The return was safe despite the fact that one of the three parachutes on the command module failed.

The three astronauts were reprimanded a year later when it was revealed they had secretly carried unauthorized postal covers to the surface of the moon and each paid $7,000 for it. When NASA got wind of the stamp covers being for sale by a German stamp dealer, they were reprimanded and had to forfeit the money. In addition, they never flew into space again.

Three Apollo 15 Astronauts, from left, David Scott; Alfred Worden, and James Irwin, were disciplined by NASA July 12, 1972, for secretly carrying 400 souvenir, stamped envelopes that could have been sold for $600,000 or more. One hundred of the envelopes were given to an acquanintance of the astronauts and sold at a reported price of $1,500 each. The three, who eventually decided not to take any of the $150,000, "exercized poor judgement," NASA said. (AP Photo)

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The lunar rock hounds of Apollo 15: Exploring the moon in a bucking bronco buggy in 1971 - PennLive