Moving the Shuttle

[hollohas]

I don't know if any of you have been following the Shuttle being moved to the museum in California, but it has been pretty cool.

The shuttle is huge so they had to cut down somewhere around 400 trees, move power lines, lay down steel plates and shut down streets. They built a special tow dolly that was radio controlled so the drivers could move it in any direction as they walked along side it down the city streets (they couldn't use the highway because the over-passes are too short).

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/10/12/space-shuttle-endeavour-embarks-on-12-mile-trip-to-la-museum/

At one point during the journey they had to cross the 405 freeway. The tow dolly plus shuttle were too heavy to cross the bridge so they moved the shuttle to a lighter, non-powered dolly and used a Toyota Tundra to pull the shuttle over the bridge...all 145 tons of it. Pretty freaking cool.

http://wot.motortrend.com/2012-toyota-tundra-tows-endeavour-toward-california-science-center-275519.html

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[Sharpienads]

That's some pretty good press for Toyota.

Pretty impressive.

[BUC303]

That's some pretty good press for Toyota.

Pretty impressive.


haha, yeah I wonder what they had to shell out for that[Coffee]

[hollohas]

haha, yeah I wonder what they had to shell out for that[Coffee]

I don't know what Toyota paid, but they are saying it cost $10M to move the shuttle those 12 miles. But apparently Toyota has been a long time sponsor of the museum so perhaps their sponsorship just paid off.

[colorider]

Funny hearing them chant "USA" being that it's being towed by a toyota.

[hollohas]

Funny hearing them chant "USA" being that it's being towed by a toyota.

You do know that's an American truck, right? The only Tundra factory in the world is in Texas and, depending on the year, 75-85% of the parts are made in America too.

Take a look at the list here (http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&subject=ami&story=amMade0712) provided by cars.com. The only other truck even on the top 10 most American made cars is the F-150 (which is back on the list after being removed because of it's 2010 domestic parts content was 55% and was 60% in 2011). This is based on sales volume, parts content, number of American employees and factory location among other things.