First Leg of Next Moon Mission is a Slow Roll

NASA ENGINEER John Giles (BSME ’85, BSEE ’87) is surrounded by the highest-tech gear that powers the space program. But one of the most impressive feats of engineering he’s ever seen is a relic from 1964 that has been ferrying rockets to the launch pad for half a century.

The crawlers look like space age industrial equipment from a galactic outpost in Star Wars, but they are vintage Apollo, a pair of leftovers from the first Moon missions. They have been on the job ever since, for Skylab, space shuttles and now, Artemis, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon.

Giles’ job at Kennedy Space Center is to oversee operations for the crawlers and keep these decidedly analog vehicles working in an age when there’s an app for everything. It’s no small task.

Each vehicle is 6.65 million pounds, lifts 18 million pounds, and the top is big enough that the 30 people it takes to operate it could play a baseball game. Driving it requires a license you can’t get at the DMV. And when the crawler is in motion, Giles is keeping an eye on things, either in a control room or on a catwalk that runs the perimeter of the machine.

“In the time since the crawler was designed, the launch vehicles, the mobile launch tower, the launch pad, the rockets — they’re all new,” Giles says. “But they roll to the launch pad on equipment
built in 1964.”

The ride from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad can take all day, starting at 0.05 mph and topping out at the rip-roaring speed of 0.82 mph. A gust of wind can be a reason to pause or slow down, a “pothole” on the crawlerway can shift the course a crucial few inches. Going slow, it turns out, is not so easy.

The 6.65-million pound vehicle crushes the rocks on the crawlerway. Photo courtesy of John Giles

The ride from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad can take all day, starting at 0.05 mph and topping out at the rip-roaring speed of 0.82 mph. A gust of wind can be a reason to pause or slow down, a “pothole” on the crawlerway can shift the course a crucial few inches. Going slow, it turns out, is not so easy.

“Things in this world that carry a lot of weight don’t carry it fast,” Giles says. “Going 0.05 mph is a very slow speed to achieve.”

Where do degrees in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering come in? The diesel engines are connected to generators with AC current distributed to the crawler and mobile
launcher and DC current distributed to 16 motors that turn tread belts. The gear box achieves a massive gear reduction of 168 to 1, making the slow speed possible.

“Going slow gives you the opportunity to stay in touch with everything,” Giles says. “If you’re driving 80 mph on the interstate and you pass a sign, you don’t have time to read it all. But at half a mile an hour, we have time to make adjustments.”

When things need attention, the crawler crew springs into action, like a NASCAR pit crew without the racecar.

“It’s 57 years old, so we have to be prepared to fix things on short notice, especially if we’re moving to launch,” Giles says. “Say you had an antique car sitting in your garage. One day, it’s not going to start. Engines are made to move, and the crawler is no different, so we drive it about every two weeks for a couple of miles.”

Apollo-era parts are not on sale at your local hardware or auto parts store, so it takes engineering and ingenuity to keep the crawlers running. The original motors were for 1960s locomotives and are no longer available. When spare and refurbished parts no longer do the trick, the parts are sent to a machine shop in Jacksonville for a rebuild.

Artemis in position for a Moon launch. Photo courtesy of John Giles

Giles says although both degrees come in handy, he didn’t set out to get two engineering degrees.

“I got to the end of the first degree and realized I had been working so hard that I didn’t have the fun they say you’re supposed to have in college. Since I had electrical engineering electives, it didn’t take long to get the second degree.”

All three of Giles’ children — Aaron (BSME ’18, BSAE ’18, MSME ’19), Vittoria (BSAC ’20, MACC ’20), and Connor (BSCS ’21) — are UF graduates, with Aaron also at NASA working on SpaceX Falcon vehicles.

Aaron says he didn’t realize what a big influence NASA was on his life until he got to college and was drawn to aerospace engineering. During college, he participated in Gatorloop, UF’s entry for a SpaceX competition, and met his wife during an intramural softball game.

Giles says his children became Gators by osmosis.

Aaron says he applied to other universities — “heaven forbid I didn’t get in to UF” — but Vittoria and Connor were so smitten, they applied only to UF.

Giles says retirement looms, but he hopes to end his career in human space flight.

“I told myself I was not going to retire until we launched astronauts again on a NASA launch vehicle,” Giles says. “That’s what’s keeping me here.”

The Artemis missions, which started in March with the first dress rehearsal rollout, are aimed at landing the first woman and person of color on the Moon. “The rockets for Artemis have to go 24,500 mph to escape Earth’s gravity, but in order to get to launch, we take this all-day trip, leaving the VAB at 0.05 mph,”

Giles says. “Crawling is the only way to get to the launchpad.”

Giles says working with the crawler has deepened his respect for the engineers of half a century ago, who likely never dreamed their invention would be state-of-the-art in 2022.

“We’re lucky that in the 1960s, engineers still drew by hand on vellum and used slide rules for calculations and designed it with multiple factors of safety,” Giles says.

“Without that, we wouldn’t be able to adapt them to use today.”