Remember that job you were tasked to do? Build a transporter for a rocket that's yet to be made with transportation methods that don't exist yet, all on swampland. What did you come up with? My Gramps came up with the Crawler. When he died in 2005, his obituary was picked up by the New York Times and the Chicago Times. This was before social media so it was a great honor that those papers ran his obituary without our prompting. And the name you may have just googled for the Chief Designer and Engineer of the Crawler is Donald D. Buchanan. You don't say it that way. It's Buchanan like a buck. No long u. When I asked as a child why we said it differently than everybody else, the answer always was, "we're Southern." That was all I got and so that is all you will get and it will have to be enough. So from here on out my gramps will be referred to by his nickname "Buck" or "Gramps" so there is no confusion with the long u.
What is the Crawler? The Crawler is the answer to the tedious task of transporting a rocket or spacecraft. To quote NASA, it is "a pair of behemoth machines called crawler-transporters that have carried the load of taking rockets and spacecraft to the launch pad for more than 40 years at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida." What exactly does behemoth entail? Each is the size of a baseball infield. Imagine a baseball infield on stilts and tank wheels carrying a rocket or spacecraft coming at you. That was my Gramps' answer to moving a rocket on swampland. It weighs 6,000,000 lbs.
Getting to this answer was no easy task. Teams were determining whether by barge or by rail the weight, stability, and propulsion would best be suited for the transporter. A phone call changed it all. The proposition of a steam-shovel crawler seemed to solve the equation for weight and stability on uneven land. Transportation by barge and by rail would ruled out through testing by not measuring up to the three criteria: weight, stability, and propulsion. The steam-shovel crawler model was the answer to those key things plus it fit into the pre-existing launch pad complex design. Buck's idea of making two crawlers instead of five at $25 million a pop won out. The crawler would travel 1.6 kmph while carrying the rocket. It's turning radius is 152 meters or 499 ft. The crawler platform could keep level within 25 cm on a 5% grade with its hydraulic system to get up the hills to the launch pads. Two 2750 horsepower diesel engines gave power to 16 motor engines. It moved on four double tracked tank looking treads. Each of the treads had 57 shoes that were 7.5 ft long each. The shoes alone weighed 1,984 lbs. All the materials are fireproof. It needs a special 6.2 mile road filled with calculated materials to carry all that 127,868.112 lbs of distributed weight and size on swampland from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. The crawler way road is nicknamed the "golden road" because it was so expensive to create. It would take from 1962 until 1966 for the crawler to go from idea, to testing, to building, to safety testing, to using.
Buck knew all the information of specifications for every part of the crawler and the crawler way by heart. I read a transcript of a presentation he gave to the Royal Automobiles Club in London. He kept it in his office museum. He answered their questions thoroughly and with specifics for every part as if he were recalling a family recipe. My favorite response of his was about computers. "Computers are stupid. They only know what you tell them to know."
For all his hard work, the crawler only broke down on him once. It was in service from 1966 until 2011 when the Space Program lost funding and retired the shuttle fleet. Hey there is that problem of money is again. Both crawlers are expected to be used by the new private programs. Buck, it more than stood the test of time. Mission accomplished.
Buck's main goal in the design and implementation of the Complex 39 launch pads was that they be outfitted for not only the current Apollo program but with future space shuttle programs in mind. Because of this original mindset, the conversion of the launch pads for the shuttle program needed minimal modifications greatly reducing costs to the conversion of the existing infrastructure. Buck's master design mind was also put to use designing the swinging umbilical cord arms, scaffolding, and lightning rod you see the Rockets and Space Shuttle on before takeoff.
In 1979, Buck was appointed the Director, Mechanical and Facilities Engineering in the Design Directorate. The first Shuttle launch was on April 12, 1981. Buck retired in 1981. He continued on as a consultant in launch facilities into the mid 90s. Buck was a visionary. He was an excellent strategic planner. He was a master mind. He was attentive to program schedules and costs. It is estimated that his initiatives saved NASA $75 million in his 32 years of service. A job well done, Grandfather Sir.
When you visit the Kennedy Space Center and see the plaque the size of me on the wall honoring Donald D. Buchanan. Go touch it. Take a picture with it and send it to me. Send your gratitude along to him for sharing his gifted mind and for his contributions to this world.
No comments:
Post a Comment