June 19-July 2, 2018
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Selftrained engineer shot for the moon ‘Putty’ Mills has his Lunar Rover prototype from the Apollo program, and he’ll parade it on July 4 By Raiza Giorgi
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Photo above by Raiza Giorgi; below, contributed utledge “Putty” Mills stepped carefully as he made his way to the Self-taught engineer Rutledge “Putty” Mills sits in his prototype of the Lunar Rover in which Apollo astronauts trained for moon expeditions. lower part of his acreage in Santa Ynez. At 95 years old, he moved quite Santa Ynez Valley Men’s Forum will be most kids idolized fighter pilots and Mills spritely as he chattered about the upbringparading his prototype in this year’s Fourth was ready to take the two-day test to being that led him to become part of Ameriof July Parade in Solvang. come one of them. can history. Mills was born in the suburbs of Phil“Out of two million people in the miliNear his barn, to an untrained eye, sat adelphia in 1923 and remembers making tary the officers told me that I had the best a gray go-cart-looking contraption with a the long trek across the country when his scores. I guess I was pretty good, but by NASA sticker on the front. But as he talked family decided to opt for warmer weather the time my training was over the war was he revealed that this was the prototype he and moved to Santa Barbara on the advice just about finished,” Mills said. built for American astronauts to practice of a friend. Because he had “amphibious training,” driving the Lunar Rover before their trip to “My mother had the trunk of the Buick which included very little water training in packed and off we moved in 1930. Santa Morro Bay, Mills was flown overseas after the moon during the Apollo 17 landing in Barbara was an amazing community to the first assaults on Japan. 1972. grow up in, and I loved riding my motor“I was staged in the Philippines for a “I built two of them that the astronauts year as cleanup, but we still took fire every trained with, with surplus military supplies cycle so much that I became the youngest member of the Santa Barbara Motorcycle day from enemies,” Mills said. that cost about $2,000 each. NASA paid Club,” Mills said. more than $40 million for four rovers that ROVER CONTINUED ON PAGE 29 When he graduated from Santa Barbara went up,” Mills said, proud that he had High School during World War II, Mills saved the government millions of dollars. NASA paid $41 million for four moon rovers, but Mills built applied to be a fighter pilot. At the time, his prototypes for $2,000 each. Mills and his fellow members of the
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