Got an email from Otha “Skeet” Vaughan Jr., who worked with Wernher von Braun at ABMA, and on the Apollo program and the lunar rovers:

Reference the “The Lunar Rover and Ed San Juan,” you are correct; he did some early work on developing a mobility program for Hayes International in Birmingham and later at Brown Engineering, but as you say he was not the inventor of the Lunar Rover.

We started working on the MOLAB designs in the late 50s. Later we progressed to the Mobility Test Articles which replicated the mobility performance of the MOLAB concept. Later I was responsible for developing the Lunar Environment Design Criteria for the Lunar Rover.

Best source on Rover information at present is developed in the book “Lunar and Planetary Rovers” by Anthony Young. I also worked in the design of the Lunar Driving Simulator that was developed at MSFC.

The rover was not designed by one person but many people had input to the design as it progressed.

Otha H. “Skeet” Vaughan Jr.

ABMA NASA MSFC Retired

Mr. Vaughan is more recently famous for his work in the observation of meteorological phenomena from orbit, including the discovery of sprites and jets.