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Antarctic Snow Cruiser
- g0ran 7y agoI wonder if this was inspiration for the design of transport vehicle in Aliens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_(film)
- detritus 7y agoI tended to imagine that was inspired by larger 'pushback' vehicles at airports. eg. https://www.terbergdts.co.uk/globalassets/special-vehicles-subsidiaries/terberg-dts/products-media-blocks-659-x-439/aviation/schopfproducts.jpg https://www.terbergdts.co.uk/globalassets/special-vehicles-s... - looks bad-ass!
- rjsw 7y agoThe Wikipedia article says that it was an airport vehicle.
- smcleod 7y agoCheck out the “Tucker Sno-Cat” that was used by New Zealander and British explorers in early (1950s) Antarctic expeditions, several of the historic vehicles are in the Canterbury (Christchurch) museum. [1] http://www.spiritofmawson.com/objects/tucker-sno-cat-antarctica/ http://www.spiritofmawson.com/objects/tucker-sno-cat-antarct... [2] http://forrestmccarthy.blogspot.com/2016/03/commonwealth-trans-antarctic-expedition.html http://forrestmccarthy.blogspot.com/2016/03/commonwealth-tra... And some amazing video footage here (sorry about the music): https://youtu.be/NA4pUalceVE https://youtu.be/NA4pUalceVE
- kayfox 7y agoTucker Sno-Cat is still in business too, still making snow crawlers. There's something to be said about businesses that don't try to diversify, they just keep making one line of good product.
- short_sells_poo 7y agoI wonder what prompted them to use smooth (treadless) tires? Large and soft tires are certainly good on snow, but smooth? Maybe that actually works better on ice?
- NikkiA 7y agoPossibly, the LCC-1 that the US Army used in greenland was successful and while the tyres had treads, they were very shallow treads. A picture here: https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2901/14573121102_56c93ec47f_b.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2901/14573121102_56c93ec47f_b....
- gameswithgo 7y agoprobably all that was available in that size plus a lack of understanding. or maybe they thought chains would be fine. but in the pictures there are just four chains! need another 20 or so i would think.
- twic 7y agoI would assume the tyres were chosen to work well on the terrain of Agartha, the ultimate destination of the expedition.
- ColanR 7y agoI hadn't heard about the connection to Agartha before.
- tokai 7y agoThe threads will be packed with snow in no time.
- josefresco 7y agoSiping is an important part of snow tire tread.
- gus_massa 7y ago
- gameswithgo 7y agosuch a huge feat of engineering and then they put smooth tires on it! humans are amazing. what are some other examples of inexplicably bad engineering decisions on otherwise well built machines? the front wheel drive nissan lemans car comes to mind
- dragosmocrii 7y agoHow come a 11L Diesel engine only made 300HP? Was the engine that ineficient at the time, compared to a modern engine?
- rpeden 7y agoDiesels like this trend to produce relatively low horsepower, but lots of torque. As a comparison, here's a modern 11L diesel: https://www.macktrucks.com/powertrain-and-suspensions/engines/mp7/ https://www.macktrucks.com/powertrain-and-suspensions/engine... You'll notice that HP is 325-425, so not that dramatically different from the Snow Cruiser.
- SigmundA 7y agoMore than double the horsepower mainly due to turbo charging. That level of power is for commercial use, an 11L diesel can easily put out more than 1000hp based on the amount of boost but the longevity of the engine suffers and the power is not need for the application. Here is a Volvo 13L (The Mack MP7 is basically a Volvo D11) putting out 2500hp: https://www.motor1.com/news/94292/2400-hp-volvo-truck-seeks-world-speed-records/ https://www.motor1.com/news/94292/2400-hp-volvo-truck-seeks-...
- fffrantz 7y agoHorsepower are only one of the measurements for an engine. These engines have enormous amount of torque which is more important than sheer horsepower.
- gameswithgo 7y agoYou can multiply torque with gears, can't multiply horsepower. An engine with lots of torque is important because you can make a lot of horsepower at low rpm, important when you need to make a lot of horsepower for a long time, efficiently.
- LeonM 7y agoHorsepower (which has many definitions) is the torque output multiplied by the engine RPM (divided by some number to make it equal to the strength of an average horse). Since these engines operate in a relatively low RPM range, the HP number is not that high. Most countries switched to using kilowatts as a measure of vehicle engine power. Also remember that these are diesel engines from the late 1930's. This was before the development of 2-stroke (blown) or even turbocharged diesel engines. These engines were a lot less powerful compared to modern diesel engines.
- speedgoose 7y agoThey could have waited a few months for the winter and tested it on the snow.
- ea016 7y agoThere's a good video on the topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR0M7KjnJTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR0M7KjnJTE
- matt-attack 7y agoThanks, that video is way more informative that the wikipedia article.
- joncrane 7y agoFirst ever application of the diesel-electric drivetrain setup on a 4-wheel land vehicle, now commonly used on those monster mining trucks. Neat.
- arethuza 7y agoDiesel-electric drivetrains were planned earlier for some heavy tank designs - e.g. TOG2 and I think one of the Porsche designs.
- abegnoche 7y agoSnowmobile was patented in 1937, would have a been a much better choice than threadless wheels.
- lm28469 7y ago> combination kitchen/darkroom As in photographic darkroom ? edit: yes, https://books.google.de/books?id=vNsDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA494&lpg=PA494&dq=snow+cruiser+%22darkroom%22&source=bl&ots=3nXHKPOtuI&sig=ACfU3U1wUJi05_JOKlS8LZ_0ifNXksqKbA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiT_aCPv43oAhWXgVwKHYekB5YQ6AEwD3oECE4QAQ#v=onepage&q=darkroom&f=false https://books.google.de/books?id=vNsDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA494&lpg=P...
- rkangel 7y agoWe forget, with the advent of digital photography, how pivotal access to a darkroom used to be for all sorts of endeavours. Facility for developing Black and White photos is not very complicated. Usually you just need an enlarger, some chemical tanks and a room with no light. If you want to do slides (rather than prints), and use the right film, it's even simpler as you just need to develop the film.
- lm28469 7y agoYeah I'm about to setup a darkroom in my bathroom. I already develop myself but I want to get into printing. Doing that on the go during an Antarctica exploration seems like a pain in the ass though. It's simpler with slides because you skip the print process, but developing slide isn't nearly as easy as b&w. It's 10+ steps process [0] and temp is critical vs 3 steps for b&w. You can also make slides from b&w film if you're adventurous: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/bw-slides-from-tri-x-you-betcha https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-so... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-6_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-6_process
- rozab 7y agoHere's a nice video summing up the story https://youtu.be/zR0M7KjnJTE https://youtu.be/zR0M7KjnJTE
- fsloth 7y agoLeTourneau Land Train concept seems to use large tires as well. And is even more insane (in a good way) https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2009/11/19/54-wheel-drive-the-letourneau-electric-arctic-land-trains-that-put-australian-road-trains-to-shame/ https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2009/11/19/54-wheel-drive-the-...
- Theodores 7y ago> By the way, recognize those tires? Bob Chandler bought four of them from a Seattle junkyard and fitted them to Bigfoot 4 to capture the title of Tallest Monster Truck. From what I have read elsewhere this was where the monster truck idea started.
- fsloth 7y agoHere seems to be another article with much better pictures about this beast https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/06/the-antarctic-snow-cruiser/396617/ https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/06/the-antarctic-snow...
- lscotte 7y agoNot for me, subscription only site.
- NinjaAmbush 7y ago4 free articles per month that they track in a cookie in your browser. Surprisingly common tactic these days... Good thing there's a Firefox extension keeping track of which sites do that and declining the cookies.
- aidenn0 7y agoI wonder why tires were used rather than a continuous track. Perhaps because repair of continuous track would be harder than tire replacement?
- dkdk8283 7y agoFrom Wikipedia: > Wheels and tires retracted into housings where they were heated by engine exhaust gases. This was to prevent low-temperature cracking of the natural rubber compound. Long front and rear overhangs on the body were to assist with crossing crevasses up to 15 feet (4.6 m) wide. The front wheels were to be retracted so the front could be pushed across the crevasse. The front wheels were then to be extended (and the rear wheels retracted) to pull the vehicle the rest of the way across. This process required a complicated, 20-step procedure.
- jesuschroist 7y agoBut this process requires even more traction than simply moving, which the vehicle had problems to begin with. My guess in answering the initial question would be bad engineering.
- aidenn0 7y agocontinuous tracks can be retracted too though, and they can be made without rubber.
- aidenn0 7y agoMore research seems to indicate that continuous tracks do have significant maintenance drawbacks compared to tires (a tire can be expected to last significantly more miles than a track between repairs/replacement). However, it definitely was a design defect as the cruiser was unable to travel reliably on the snow, and Byrd had previous success in Antarctica with tracked vehicles...
- joncp 7y ago"75,000 lbs" .... whoa.
- notjustanymike 7y agoShould have used Agile development to iterate on an MVP snow cruiser. Let's have a standup to talk about any blocker re: the wheels getting stuck and [spike] a quick solution.
- js2 7y agoI don't think the Goodyear logo has changed a bit: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snow_cruiser_1.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snow_cruiser_1.jpg - https://corporate.goodyear.com/en-US/about/history/wingfoot-origin.html https://corporate.goodyear.com/en-US/about/history/wingfoot-... That seems somewhat rare these days.
- customized 7y agoScientists measured cosmic rays in a 1930's, deco designed, self-sufficient, artic snow cruiser with an airplane on top! How cool is that!