NASA

Into It: Rubber Ducky

Andrew Bales — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:00:40 +0000

Back in the seventies, Sesame Street’s Ernie sang to us about his favorite bath time buddy. But the rubber ducky has seen adventures far beyond the tub.

In 1992, three cargo containers leaving Hong Kong spilled into the Pacific Ocean. This released a shipment of 29,000 ducks, leaving them to bob along the open waters. But they didn’t sit idly by for long.

The pioneer duckies set out on separate paths, aimed at far-flung shores. Ten months and 2,000 miles later, they first made landfall in Alaska. Next, they washed onto the coasts of Australia and South America.

Into It: Crawlers

Andrew Bales — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:05:03 +0000

Since the Apollo missions of the sixties, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been home to an odd couple: a pair of crawler-transporters. Weighing in at six million pounds, their gargantuan metal slab is reminiscent of an oil rig carted around atop four military tanks.

Every space voyage begins its journey on the back of a crawler. From the towering Saturn V rockets to the line of relatively compact shuttles that followed, the odd ritual looks like this:

Into It: Crawlers

Andrew Bales — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:38:41 +0000

Every space voyage begins its journey on the back of a crawler. From the towering Saturn V rockets to the line of relatively compact shuttles that followed, the odd ritual looks like this: