Wasn't sure where to put these. We got to tour the crawler that carries the shuttle to the launch pad. Once the the shuttle is launched they re-furbish the moblil launch platform and bring it back to the vertical assembly building. Our load test got rained out for the day so we took a tour of the crawler as they were bringing the platform back to the VAB.
That's great. I would love to see it someday. Wonder what the future holds for the transporter after the demise of the shuttle program?
looks like a playskool steering wheel nice pics
We took the tour a few years ago, when we got off the bus outside the VAB one old guy looked up and just went right over backwards.
Probably sold for scrap ...1 dollar
The crawler is supposed to soldier on supporting future launch vehicles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter
got to love the fuel mileage ... 150 gallons per mile
Crawler Ride: Man... Grandpa's sure lucky he didn't hit the back of his head, on the concrete. Ahhhh..... or..... did he???... :tong ← :lmao OCR...
I had the chance to see it in person, its really a marval.
Haha, maybe it's got a PowerStroke in it lol. I seen it on TV a couple times and they said that they had the roadway all asphalt and then they were wearing the track pads too fast so they went to gravel......Did I get that story right???? Pj
NASA report on the reason for the design http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-4204/ch11-6.html http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4204/ch15-5.html http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4204/ch13-1.html
Actually its got 2 16 cylinder ALCO Diesels with DC Generators to power the tracks and 2 big V-8 Detroit AC generators to power all the subsystems. On the gravel, one theory is to place a substrate thats really hard and can't be worn out, but because the crawler doesn't have a suspension then the vibrations from all of the pads slapping the ground migrate up through what ever it was carriing ( spelling) and cause it to move around quite abit. The degration of the gravel as the crawler travels over it acts as a suspension of sorts, reducing the virbrations and making the 8 hour 3 mile trip to the pad a little easier on the guys that run it.