Giant crawler transporter to pass 1000 miles on STS-35 rollout (Fo
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey
To: SPA...@ANDREW.CMU.EDU
Original_To: SPACE
There's been some discussion of the Shuttle/Saturn crawlers, but I haven't seen
anybody mention the definitive source of information.
Kids, you want to go find a copy of *Road & Track*, I'm pretty sure it's the
April 1985 issue, page 192. (If I messed up, look at other issues that year.)
Every once in a while, as a sort of April Fool's thing, *R&T* would run a
deadpan road test of some exotic vehicle like the Goodyear Blimp or the Gresley
A3 Pacific Locomotive. Well, in 1985 Ted West, Engineering Editor, reported on
"The KSC 554,756 Hardtop: Longer, Lower and Weirder for 1985."
If you have any interest in the crawlers, you *must* read this. West has lots
of tongue-in-cheek fun with it, but I've never seen more technical information
on the vehicles. There's lots in the article, and even more figures in long
tables accompanying it, in the manner of auto-magazine tech evaluations. Some
quotes to get you galvanized and headed down to the library:
"If you're looking for traditional, massive American *horsepower*, the KSC
554,756 is yer kinda car. Its raucous 554,756 cc are packaged in no less than
six different containers. And 350,342 of them are enclosed in a pair of
2750-bhp 16-cylinder Alco diesels. An additional 180,070 cc come wrapped in
two 1075-bhp 8-cylinder White diesels. Finally, 24,344 cc reside in a pair of
very pedestrian 6-cylinder Cummins truck diesels. There is also a paltry
7.5-bhp Onan compressor-drive-- but the less said about that little wimp the
better."
"...Speaking of steering, we found the KSC's just a trifle, dare we say it,
heavy. However, directional stability was exemplary, we felt no buffeting
whatever in stron sidewinds and thought nothing whatever of hands-off steering
for long periods while running flat out. More top marks."
"There was a great *Cluuunk!* and not quite a *lunge*. We said we'd bet our
left shoe the thing would be geared too tall, but, to our great surprise, the
554,756 got off the line smartly and was up to cruising speed in just under no
time, leaving our left shoe behind at a steady, smooth 1.0 mph. The 554,756 is
said to be capable of a brisk 2.0 mph flat-out-- `and maybe more'-- but we were
told that, somewhat like the *Queen Mary's*, the 554,756's true top speed is
known only to God and a certain electrical engineer (`poor soul') living in
seclusion for the past 20 years in a small auto court outside Marion, Ohio."
______meson Bill Higgins
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