[Az-Geocaching] RE: Vehicle of choice

[Brian Casteel]

After some google action, I came across this:

Explanation: NASA's Crawler-Transporters are the largest tracked vehicles in 
existence. Although the crawlers pack over 5,000 horsepower, their top speed 
is less than two kilometers per hour when fully loaded. Eleven people are 
needed to drive a single crawler. Diesel fuel mileage is about 350 liters 
per kilometer (less than 0.007 miles per gallon). The crawler's function is 
to move NASA's space shuttles -- complete with launch platforms -- from the 
Assembly Building to the Launch Pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. 
Two of these massive machines have operated since the Apollo era and have 
now crawled over 4,000 kilometers, all the while keeping their contents 
perfectly upright. In this picture a crawler transports the shuttle Columbia 
to the pad prior to its March 1st launch on the latest Hubble Space 
Telelescope Servicing Mission.

Based on these figures, it looks like the Crawler uses 924.7 gallons of fuel 
to cover the approximate distance of 6.21 miles.  Sounds like some of 
today's oversized, underutilized status symbols.  :)

Brian

Team A.I.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Scotti" <jscotti@pirl.lpl.Arizona.EDU>
To: <listserv@azgeocaching.com>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 11:25 AM
Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] RE: Vehicle of choice


> Not sure about that number, but the crawler that carries the shuttle to 
> the
> launchpad moves along at about 1/2 mile per hour and makes the 3 mile 
> journey
> from the VAB to the pad in about 6 hours.  At 8 gallons per foot, it would
> require 126,000 gallons to get to the launchpad - not sure if that is
> reasonable or not - but it seems a bit large.  It's an impressive vehicle,
> though - not quite as impressive as the rockets it carries, but impressive
> none-the-less.
>
> Jim.
>
> On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 insomniak@cox.net wrote:
>
>> As I recall, the platform that moves the space shuttle from the prep
>> building to the launch pad, gets about 8 gallons to the foot.
>>
>> Jake - Team A.I.
>>
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>
> Jim Scotti
> Lunar & Planetary Laboratory
> University of Arizona
> Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/
>
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