[Az-Geocaching] RE: Vehicle of choice

[Jim Scotti]

Aha!  I looked at the webpage Damian mentioned and to quote, it says:

<quote>
When they were built, the KSC crawlers were the largest tracked vehicles ever
made. (Surpassed by the Bagger 288 German excavator). They move the Mobile
Launcher Platform into the Vehicle Assembly Building and then to the Launch
Pad with an assembled space vehicle. Maximum speed is 1.6km (one mile) per
hour loaded, about 3.2 km (2 miles) per hour unloaded. Launch Pad to VAB trip
time with the Mobile Launch Platform is about 5 hours. The crawler burns 568
liters (150 gallons) of diesel oil per mile.
</quote>

It says it burns 150 gallons of diesel oil per mile (not 150 gallons per
hour...) which is 0.00667 miles per gallon.  Taking the information from the
Astronomy Picture of the Day site taht Brian mentions, converting 350 liters
per kilometer to miles per gallon gives 0.00672 mpg - the same answer (well,
at least to the precision the sources give....)!

BTW, the APOD is one of my favorite sites along with a sister site called the
"Lunar Picture of the Day".

Jim.

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Brian Casteel wrote:

> Oh, and here's my link to the info...
> 
> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020304.html
> 
> Gotta love NASA.  Even their own site contradicts their own information.
> 
> Brian
> Team A.I.
> 
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Damian Nichols 
>   To: listserv@azgeocaching.com 
>   Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 12:00 PM
>   Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] RE: Vehicle of choice
> 
> 
>   Kind of a cool article about the "crawler".... the machine used to
> carry the shuttle to the launch pad.
> 
>   Max Speed: 1 mph loaded , 2mph unloaded
>   Fuel: burns 150 gallons of diesel fuel per hour
>   5 hours to make its journey
> 
>   Read all bout it here:
> http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/facilities/crawler.html
> 

Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/