OT - 50 years on, the NASA Crawlers trundle on

#4087082 - 03/03/15 07:37 PM OT - 50 years on, the NASA Crawlers trundle on
Joined: May 2012 Posts: 997 HumanDrone Just shoot me...
HumanDrone Just shoot me... Member Joined: May 2012 Posts: 997 Near Pittsburgh, PA USA	I wouldn't ordinarily post stuff like this, but I'm proud as punch: NASA crawlers still going strong 50 years on. I'm proud not just as an American, but for the part my company has played - we were the ones that did the power uprate study that determined what was needed to get 25 million pounds up the hill instead of 17 million pounds. I picked up the call when our liaison at NASA contacted up about the project, and I said "MIKE! You're kidding! YOU GOTTA GET ME A RIDE ON THAT BEAUTY! I was almost 14 when they landed on the moon, I built all the models, PLEASE!" And of course he said he'd be happy to, but alas, my storied boss ended up doing the study. I thought I'd get some involvement but he's forgotten more about our business than I'll ever know, so it was his show one end to the other. He got down to the cape and crawled all over that beauty, took rides, inspected cabling, supervised motor heat runs, all that good stuff. And God bless him! But man do I wish he'd needed a hand... Here's a reduced size panorama I created for him from the pictures he'd taken while he was there. (The original is 7050 pixels wide...) Box: Win7 Pro 64 bit / I72600K @4.1 GHz / EVGA GTX1080Ti/ 16GB RAM / Corsair 240 GB SSD / WD 600 GB Velociraptor / 1050W Power FS Stuff: Saitek X52 Pro Stick/Throttle & Combat Rudder Pedals, TrackIR 5 Sims: FSX Gold, REX 2.0 OD, UTX-NA, FSGenesis 10m mesh/ CFS3 ETO 1.40/Wings Over Flanders Fields BH&H2 (more gorgeous than ever!) Proud BOC inductee 4/30/12!

It gets me, too, Hasse. NASA's 2015 budget request is .46% of the total US Federal Budget - that's $4.60 out of $1000.00!

Still, perhaps the chemical propulsion technology is kinda fleshed out. I know I'm not up for a 9 month trip to Mars (one way) and maybe never coming back. The rovers are doing just fine. But it may be worthwhile to reconsider the Moon.

And I sure could use a flying car, let's hope these guys can get us off the ground.

Box: Win7 Pro 64 bit / I72600K @4.1 GHz / EVGA GTX1080Ti/ 16GB RAM / Corsair 240 GB SSD / WD 600 GB Velociraptor / 1050W Power
FS Stuff: Saitek X52 Pro Stick/Throttle & Combat Rudder Pedals, TrackIR 5
Sims: FSX Gold, REX 2.0 OD, UTX-NA, FSGenesis 10m mesh/ CFS3 ETO 1.40/Wings Over Flanders Fields BH&H2 (more gorgeous than ever!)
Proud BOC inductee 4/30/12!