Nov 16, 2009 2:53 pm US/Pacific
Amelia: What Has 16 Motors And Goes 1 MPH?
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ―
-
-
Space Shuttle Discovery, sitting atop the crawler transporter, rolls out to launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center August 4, 2009 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.. Discovery is scheduled to launch no earlier than August 25 on a mission to the ISS.
Matt Stroshane/Getty Images
While watching the Space Shuttle Atlantis depart into the skies, the television crews cut to a shot of the crawler. This is the vehicle that pulls the shuttle to Launch Complex 39 along the "crawlerway".
I got to thinking about what it must take for these machines to carry something as heavy as the shuttle. These machines were designed specifically to transport the Saturn IB and Saturn V Rockets but have since been converted to carry the space shuttle. There are two of these $14 million vehicles in the world and when they were built they were the largest tracked vehicles in the world.
The crawlers weigh 2,400 tons and have eight tracks. Each track has 57 shoes each shoe is about 1,500 lbs. This machine can hold 5,000 gallons of fuel and it burns 150 gallons per mile!
The crawler is controlled by two separate cabs at both ends of the vehicle. It takes crews about 5 hours to travel the five miles between the VAB to Launch Complex 39. These crawlers are also quite reliable... they are the same two that have been in use since 1965 and in their lifetime they have traveled more than 2,500 miles.
The specs on the crawler are amazing!
Read More Of Amelia's Blog Entries At Cbs2.com/amelia
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
Comments