Award-winning Australia online travel company Oodles.com has unveiled plans to become the world's leading moon buggy rental provider.
With space tourism forecast to grow dramatically following the fast approaching launch of Virgin Galactic, Oodles.com said an opportunity existed for an innovative company to develop a fleet of Lunar Roving Vehicles (LRVs).
Founder Steve Sherlock said Oodles.com was interested in developing the moon buggies in partnership with Californian-based Mojave Aerospace Ventures, the company contracted to build the Virgin Galactic Spacerliner, SpaceShipTwo.
Sherlock said plans for an LRV prototype currently known as a Personal Orbiting Observation Deck & Luxury Enhanced SpaceCraft (POODLES) had already been drawn up, with engineers basing the design on the original moon buggies developed for the Apollo space missions.
Virgin Galactic's success has clearly opened up the market for sub-orbital space travel, Sherlock said.
We believe it is only a matter of time before lunar adventures are available to affluent travellers around the world.
It is our intention to offer those travellers a truly unique, all-terrain, moon driving experience.
Oodles.com intends to initially work with Australia engineers on a proof-of-concept study that would create a single standard moon buggy. However, it is the company's intention to develop a range of LRVs designed to operate a low-gravity environment.
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For more information contact:
Steve Sherlock
Managing Director and Co-founder
m: 0408 452 294
t: 03 9328 1122
e: steve@oodles.com
For editors:
Oodles.com
Oodles.com allows travellers to search, compare and book live rates from Australia's five leading car rental brands ? Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz and Thrifty ? at more than 700 rental depots across Australia and New Zealand. All prices are retrieved directly from the car rental companies? own reservation systems. Unlike other online travel sties, Oodles charges travellers no service fees or booking charges.
Steve Sherlock
Oodles.com Managing Director and Co-founder Steve Sherlock has helped pioneer online car rental in Australia. He has been involved in the launch, development and sale of three ground-breaking online car rental ventures in Australia and the UK since 1998. He started Oodles.com in partnership with his brother, Industrial Designer Des Sherlock, and the company counts former Delta and Europcar Australia owner Mario Salvo as a key investor.
Note: This page was posted for April Fool's Day - 2008.