UTMC

Think about it.
Somewhere, someone must be thinking "boy, riding around with something that size would be awesome ... I could fit my whole house on there, I wouldn't have to get off of the couch to walk to my other couch to drive to work! And the tracks could go on the hard shoulders, I could drive over traffic jams!! And it's electric! I could tell all them SUV haters to fuck off, I'm helping the environment here!"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... llect.html

Richard Gray on telegraph.co.uk wrote:For sale: 4,100 ton Nasa Shuttle launch platforms – buyer must collect

It's the thing underneath the shuttle:

1mph, too slow. It needs some stickers.

Bigshankhank wrote:1mph, too slow. It needs some stickers.

I'm sure a lot of that is a restriction, so it don't highside with the shuttle on top. And you can cut out a lot of that metal, make room for windows and shit. I'm sure it could do as much as four, maybe even five mph!

/RM

DerGolgo wrote:"...And it's electric! I could tell all them SUV haters to fuck off, I'm helping the environment here!"

Your supposed person would have a hard time justifying the 0.008 MPG it gets as environmentally friendly. A gallon of diesel every 42 feet!

Some more info on the crawler HERE

Strewth, I mixed that up with the bucket wheel excavators they use for lignite mining over here that come to mind whenever some dumbass TV show claims the crawler transporter is the biggest vehicle or some such. Those are electric.
Still, the question arises ... if you were to convert one of those crawlers to electric ... could you perhaps fit a couple of wind-turbines on top?

Kinda boxy and ugly:


but stripped down? Damn sessay!


I'd roll... ok, track, in that.

As far as electrical generation, throw a small boiling water reactor on top. Those are environmentally sound, right? And should get the thing cooking!

You know, I just had an idea, I had ... they're selling three of these, right?
Now, imagine if you could, in fact, power them with wind turbines or something. Cut of everything you don't need to structurally support those wind turbines, for lightness and all.

Now, back in the day, there used to be this geeky toy. A kit you could buy, to build little robots. Maybe the size of a soda can. They'd drive around, like a Roomba, but without cleaning stuff. If they got near an obstacle, they'd change course. Things'd get interesting if you put several of them in the same room. They'd sorta, you know ... dance. They couldn't remember where they had been, and they had nothing but some very crude proximity sensors to guide their way ... but it could look downright mesmerizing.

Now, combine the two. Take some old salt pan or other flat surface with no indigenous life or interesting geological features. Maybe in the Atacama desert. And then, just let them ... dance. Slowly, but for weeks, months, years maybe ... hire some local talent to give a grease job every few weeks, should probably do it, no?
Maybe, instead of wind-turbines, use a huge, self-aligning parabolic mirror as a solar oven and a steam driven generator or something ...