Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by hubie on Tuesday April 04, @03:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the big-big-machines dept.

The space agency's Crawler Transporter 2 has officially broken the Guinness World Record for the heaviest self-powered vehicle:

NASA's Crawler Transporter 2 was originally designed to carry Saturn V rockets during the Apollo program nearly 60 years ago. The aging giant recently got a much-needed upgrade for supporting the Artemis SLS megarocket, beating its twin vehicle for a world record.

On Wednesday, Guinness World Records presented NASA teams at the Kennedy Space Center with a certificate confirming that, at a whopping 6.65 million pounds (3 million kilograms), Crawler Transporter 2 is the world's heaviest self-powered vehicle, NASA announced in a statement.

"Anyone with an interest in machinery can appreciate the engineering marvel that is the crawler transporter," Shawn Quinn, program manager of Exploration Ground Systems, said in the statement. [...]

"NASA's crawlers were incredible pieces of machinery when they were designed and built in the 1960s," John Giles, NASA's Crawler Element Operations manager, said in the statement. "And to think of the work they've accomplished for Apollo and shuttle and now Artemis throughout the last six decades makes them even more incredible."

Due to how heavy the Crawler Transport is, the vehicle essentially crawls its way to the launch pad. It takes about eight to 12 hours for the rocket-carrying vehicle to drive the 4.2 miles (6.7 kilometers) from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad, going at a slow and steady speed of one mile per hour (1.6 kilometers per hour). It could take you a shorter time to walk that distance by foot.

Here's a crawler-transporter fact sheet [pdf]


Original Submission

 
This discussion was created by hubie (1068) for logged-in users only, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Tuesday April 04, @05:13PM (1 child)

    by richtopia (3160) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 04, @05:13PM (#1299736) Homepage Journal

    TI-class supertanker is around 500 million kg fully laden, compared to the Crawler at 3 million kg. I'm not sure if the crawler's statistic includes cargo.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-class_supertanker [wikipedia.org]

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 04, @06:23PM

    by Freeman (732) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 04, @06:23PM (#1299751) Journal

    Perhaps, but I want to know about the flight capabilities of the African Swallow. Can it indeed carry a coconut? Otherwise, how would one bang two halves together.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"