Transporters First Carried Apollo Rockets To The Pad
They were originally
seen as something of a folly, with no less an authority than Walter
Cronkite stating they might never work. That was over 40 years
ago, however... and today, NASA's massive crawler transporters are
expected to carry the future of manned spaceflight to the
launchpad.
Crawler Transporters 1 and 2 -- known colloquially by NASA
scientists as "Hans" and "Franz" -- are still hauling such vehicles
as the space shuttle from hangars at Kennedy Space Center to the
launchpad, and they show no signs of stopping.
"They can go another 100 years," said Robert Rokobauer, a
systems engineer with United Space Alliance, to Florida Today.
Rokobauer was one of several attendees at a ceremony Friday
honoring the engineers who made the transporters a reality.
The massive transporters were first suggested by NASA in the
early 1960s, and were necessary to move the enormous Saturn rockets
used by the Apollo program to the launchpad.
Constructed by the Marion Power Shovel Company, the transporters
were nearly doomed by early problems with bearings in the crawlers'
levelling systems that were necessary to keep payloads level as the
transporters climbed the slight incline to the launch pads.
"These crawlers had some initial problems that seemed almost
insurmountable to some people outside the space center," said
retired NASA engineer Bill Clemens. "These were serious
problems."
It was at this point that Cronkite weighed in, saying the
transporters might never work.
NASA clearly needed to fix the problem, and the late Philip
Koehring Sr., a Marion Power Shovel project manager, was tapped to
lead a redesign.
In record time, Koehring developed a new hydraulically
lubricated sleeve bearing made of a bronze alloy, and that solved
the problem. The crawlers -- each taller than a two-story building,
as wide as an eight-land highway, and powered by two 2,750
horsepower engines -- first carried NASA rockets to the launch pad
in 1966.
Each transporter has logged 1,800 miles going back and forth
between the Vehicle Assembly Building and KSC's two launch pads,
carrying Saturn Vs and space shuttles at the blistering pace of 0.9
miles per hour with a full 12 million pound load.
And they'll continue to work in the future, carrying NASA's
future CEV rockets to the launchpad on missions to the ISS -- and,
possibly, Mars.
"They are impressive pieces of equipment," said Michael Wetmore,
a launch integration manager for NASA.
"There were a lot of naysayers 40 years ago, but the proof is
right here," said Koehring Sr.'s son, Philip Koehring Jr. "[The
crawlers] are still working."