Monster Machines

Over the course of our blog’s history, we’ve brought you plenty of posts about genuinely big machinery requiring genuinely big tires. But what happens when big tires aren’t big enough?

Take, for example, the, a gloriously hulking brute of a machine used to transport Space Launch Systems and other spacecraft from their preparation bays to NASA’s launch sites.

According to NASA’s, this beast measures 131×114 feet, reaching a maximum height of 26 feet. Its overall weight (sans cargo) amounts to a whopping 6.2 million pounds, with the chassis alone weighing just over 2 million pounds by themselves. Loaded, the Crawler pokes along at 1mph; unloaded, however, it reaches top speeds of 2mph. It should be noted that when bearing both a Mobile Launch Platform and a Space Shuttle, these behemoths can bear a payload of 12.6 million pounds.