In 1970, during the Luna 17 mission, the Soviet space program landed the first ever remote-controlled vehicle on the moon. Lunokhod 1 spent eleven months taking pictures of the moon's surface, and sent back about 20,000 images. It stopped communicating with the earth in 1971. Fast-forward 40 years, and read about how a new use has been found for Lunokhod 1 at the blog Starts With A Bang! Link