Apollo 16 lunar rover. Panoramic image of an astronaut with a lunar rover on the Moon's surface during the Apollo 16 mission. During this mission, astronaut John Watts Young (born 1930) achieved a lunar wheeled vehicle speed record of 18 kilometres per hour. Apollo 16 landed two astronauts in the Descartes Highlands for just under three days, from 21-24 April 1972, the other being US astronaut Charles Duke. Young and Duke carried out three excursions on the lunar surface, and collected over 90 kilograms of lunar rocks.