This is NASA's New Giant Crawler For Its Next-Generation Spaceship

I don't know why they couldn't use the old one. It was only driven a few dozen times, and never over 4 miles per hour, by a little old lady go to lunch*. It's a 'creampuff'.

_{* Or launch, whatever...}

Don't be fooled, that is the old one....They just slapped a new coat of paint on it and refurbished the wheels.....

I'll bet she corners really flat!

Yeah but unsprung weight is embarrassingly huge...!

Sounds like all they have done is convert the track frames to roller bearings on track rollers to increase capacity. They didn't say what kind of bearings they replaced.

Funny--in commercial crawlers (bulldozers) they tried tapered roller bearings in the '50's and ended up going the other way--back to steel-backed brass bushings because the rollers couldn't stand the shock loading.

'Course this crawler doesn't see any shock loading at all...just a great geezus load.

Jon.

If you ever were lucky enough to see one of these on the move you understand the definition of the word - IMPRESSIVE!