The Crawler Transporter

We watched the crawler transporter make its half hour descent of the ramp past us, now relieved of its precious cargo of mobile launch platform and STS 132 stack. One of the NASA media escorts told me that she had never seen this before in all her years working at KSC.

This often overlooked vehicle is 40 metres long and 35 metres wide! Each of its caterpilar treads has a mass of one tonne.

Possible captions: "I'm sure I lost it somewhere here as we came up this launch pad ramp before dawn this morning."; "Er, I don't want to alarm you, but you'd better look behind you!"; or "I remember when a man had to walk ahead of those newfangled things called cars with a flag. Here at NASA we are very progressive, and have dispensed with the flag!" "What's that scraping noise?" or "What do you mean, 'What gangplank?'?" "The gang plank's OK on my side, what about yours?"

Previous page Diary Contents Next Page The Space Show Southern FM


Possible captions: "I'm sure I lost it somewhere here as we came up this launch pad ramp before dawn this morning."; "Er, I don't want to alarm you, but you'd better look behind you!"; or "I remember when a man had to walk ahead of those newfangled things called cars with a flag. Here at NASA we are very progressive, and have dispensed with the flag!"	"What's that scraping noise?" or "What do you mean, 'What gangplank?'?"		"The gang plank's OK on my side, what about yours?"