NY Times: Donald Buchanan, 82, Designer of NASA's Rocket Carriers, Dies

Donald Buchanan, 82, Designer of NASA's Rocket Carriers, Dies

By JEREMY PEARCE
Published: June 28, 2005

Donald D. Buchanan, a mechanical engineer and NASA official who played a leading role
in designing the powerful "crawler" vehicles that carried rockets to their launching
sites in the 1960's and 70's and that became indispensable in later space missions,
died on June 13 at his home in Titusville, Fla. He was 82.

The cause was cancer, his family said.

In the early 60's, as the nation's space program accelerated and began to aim toward
a manned lunar landing, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration faced the
problem of ferrying larger rockets from storage to their launching pads at Cape
Canaveral, Fla.

After first considering barges and a rail system, administrators approved the crawler
concept, that of a four-track vehicle able to carry as much as 12 million pounds.

Mr. Buchanan, known as Buck, directed the design and development of the vehicle,
which was able to haul both rockets and mobile launchers several miles.

The system was successful, a second crawler was built, and the 131-foot-long vehicles
were later used in launching the Skylab space stations and are still essential in
preparations for flights of the space shuttle.

As engineering manager for Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center, Mr.
Buchanan also helped design three mobile launchers, used in the Saturn 5 missions to
the Moon. They were 363 feet tall.

"There wasn't any similar structure to compare the mobile launcher with, so we
compared it with buildings," Mr. Buchanan told The Spaceport News, the newspaper of
the space center, in 1968. "We had a problem getting people used to these
proportions."

Donald Dean Buchanan was born in Macon, Ga., and received an undergraduate degree in
mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia in 1949.

He did research for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics before working
for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Ala., from 1956 to 1960. He then
joined NASA, and in 1976 was named the space center's director of mechanical and
facilities engineering. NASA awarded him its Distinguished Service Medal in 1974. He
retired in 1981.

Mr. Buchanan is survived by his wife of 59 years, Jean; a son, Lee, of Titusville;
two daughters, Suellen Chandler of Pebble Beach, Calif., and Joanne Scully of
Lakewood, Wash.; and five grandchildren.
__________________________________________________ _______________________

As this is a history newsgroup, I think the passing of Shelby Foote at the age
of 88 should be noted as well. The last GAR and CSA soldiers died at about the
time I was born, but both sides seemed able to continue telling their stories quite
eloquently through Mr. Foote. He will be missed.

Dale

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:27:46 -0700, I wrote:

As this is a history newsgroup, I think the passing of Shelby Foote at the age
of 88 should be noted as well. The last GAR and CSA soldiers died at about the
time I was born, but both sides seemed able to continue telling their stories quite
eloquently through Mr. Foote. He will be missed.

Apologies to non-US people who have no idea what that was about. Shelby Foote
was a novelist and historian of the US Civil War. He became well-known through his
appearances on an American Public Broadcasting (PBS) documentary series produced
by Ken Burns, entitled "The Civil War". "GAR" stands for the Grand Army of the Republic,
aka "the North". "CSA" stands for the Confederate States of America, aka "the South".
While Shelby Foote was a southerner- looking almost like a throwback to the civil war era,
he wrote a multi-volume history of the war over the course of a couple of decades that was
very even-handed and brought the times to life. He did the same for the TV series.

Dale

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 02:28:51 -0700, Dale wrote:

"GAR" stands for the Grand Army of the Republic, aka "the North".

....Otherwise known as "Yankees" or "Damnyankees", or among the
Southern gentlemen, "Those 'people'".

....Also, since there weren't nuthin' "civil" about that war, it's
usually referred to as The War Betwixt The States in the occupied
territories.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

OM wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 02:28:51 -0700, Dale wrote:

"GAR" stands for the Grand Army of the Republic, aka "the North".

...Otherwise known as "Yankees" or "Damnyankees", or among the
Southern gentlemen, "Those 'people'".

...Also, since there weren't nuthin' "civil" about that war, it's
usually referred to as The War Betwixt The States in the occupied
territories.

In some places, it's still called "The War of Northern
Aggression". Polite elderly ladies in some parts of
South Carolina, places visited by Gen. Sherman once,
have been known to call it that.

- Ed Kyle

"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
oups.com...
In some places, it's still called "The War of Northern
Aggression". Polite elderly ladies in some parts of
South Carolina, places visited by Gen. Sherman once,
have been known to call it that.

It's easier than calling it what it truly was, the War of Southern
Aggression, because it would involve admitting that their ancestors
committed treason.

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:04:57 -0400, "Scott Hedrick"
wrote:


"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
roups.com...
In some places, it's still called "The War of Northern
Aggression". Polite elderly ladies in some parts of
South Carolina, places visited by Gen. Sherman once,
have been known to call it that.

It's easier than calling it what it truly was, the War of Southern
Aggression, because it would involve admitting that their ancestors
committed treason.

....Treason is a charge invented by winners as an excuse for hanging
the losers. In this case, Ben Franklin was more accurate than he could
have ever believed. When the Confederacy broke off, they were 100% in
their rights to do so based on the way the US was founded originally.
Without arguement - and much in the same way the Supreme Court behaves
today - they simply changed the rules by reinterpreting their "true
meanings".

....The only saving grace was that the Yankees didn't hang Davis, Lee,
Stevens or anyone else from the Confederate command structure save for
the commander of Andersonville, who I will admit deserved it. It's one
thing to kill a Damnyankee who's invaded your country, it's another
thing to starve him to death after he's been caught.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In article ,
OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote:
...The only saving grace was that the Yankees didn't hang Davis, Lee,
Stevens or anyone else from the Confederate command structure save for
the commander of Andersonville, who I will admit deserved it...

Harry Turtledove once wrote a rather chilling alternate-history story (I
think the title was "Must and Shall") about a world where Lincoln is
killed, not by a disgruntled Southerner in the aftermath, but while
visiting the fighting in summer 1864, by a Confederate sniper.

The Vice-President succeeds him, as in real life. But with Lincoln dead
*before* the 1864 election, it's not the same man -- Lincoln changed
running mates. His second-term VP was Andrew Johnson, a Democrat (!), a
moderate like Lincoln, committed to reunifying the country. But his
first-term VP was Hannibal Hamlin, a Radical Republican from New England,
who thought slave-owners were depraved criminals and secession was
treason.

And with Lincoln dead at Confederate hands, Hamlin has the perfect
campaign platform: revenge on the South. Its leaders are hanged, its
soldiers and their descendants disenfranchised, and its states treated as
conquered territory. The result is Northern Ireland writ large. Three
generations later -- the story is set in the early 1940s -- the US coin
with Lincoln's picture on it isn't spendable money anywhere in the South.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

"Henry Spencer"
Harry Turtledove once wrote a rather chilling
alternate-history story (I think the title was
"Must and Shall")

Well, I always count myself fortunate to be from Texas, a place where the
cultural history of the Civil War is a vanishingly small element of the
popular culture. Well, other than the fact that the population here is
now awash with African-Americans, something that I am always amazed at,
since I doubt that there were many slaves in Texas. I definitely need to
do some demographic research, even as the research is obviated by the
arrival of uneducated Latinos and their prodigious wives.

I am a determined skeptic on the topic of "things would have been
different if" as described in the book. A Hamlin presidency cannot be
assumed to be a bad thing, if it had ocurred. Similarly, as the
conservative radio now laments the Supreme Court decision to allow
property seizure for economic development, I suspect that in twenty
years, with the economy humming, urban sprawl diminished, and rational
land use implemented, that people will say "Wow. That Supreme Court had
a good idea." And so, contra the Northern Ireland scenario, I wonder
what benefits might have flowed from a Hamlin presidency. Repatriation,
perhaps?

And to go further afield, something needs to be done about the obsolete
"country" concept. Some regions, such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, numerous
others, need to be dis-established and converted to UN "Special
Administrative Zones" in light of the fact that their repeated forays
into self-governance have had results distinctly worse than no
government at all. The alternatives observed in the most immediate past
cover the gamut of state-sponsored religious bigotry, aid funds
enlivening various Swiss bank accounts, and cheap Russian arms used to
secure peace among various tribes, whose idea of prosperity is a meal
cake cooked on a dung fire.

On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 13:00:48 -0500, "Revision"
wrote:


"Henry Spencer"
Harry Turtledove once wrote a rather chilling
alternate-history story (I think the title was
"Must and Shall")

Well, I always count myself fortunate to be from Texas, a place where the
cultural history of the Civil War is a vanishingly small element of the
popular culture.

....Not as vanishing as you'd like to think. While the racism element
is, for the most part, the fact that Texas was the sole state out of
the Confederacy that truly had the legal right on paper to secede
still irks many.

Well, other than the fact that the population here is
now awash with African-Americans, something that I am always amazed at,
since I doubt that there were many slaves in Texas.

....It was a smaller percentage, but towards the end of the war quite a
number of slaveholders were selling their slaves to Texas slaveholders
to prevent them from being liberated by the Yankees and therefore not
getting one cent for them.

I definitely need to
do some demographic research, even as the research is obviated by the
arrival of uneducated Latinos and their prodigious wives.

....And the 6.3 kids they already have in tow.

I am a determined skeptic on the topic of "things would have been
different if" as described in the book. A Hamlin presidency cannot be
assumed to be a bad thing, if it had ocurred.

....This one most scholars seriously doubt would have produced anything
resembling a beneficial presedency. Hamlin would have done pretty much
what Turtledove "what if's", and the fact that during his VP tenure he
surrounded himself with nothing but like-minded radicals - if you
didn't feel the South needed to be annihilated over slavery, you
weren't allowed in the door to his office, much less given 2 minutes
of conversation - was one of the motivators for Lincoln dumping him
and choosing Andrew Johnson. Even Hamlin's own writings of the period
and after betray his intentions. Had Lincoln been killed before the
War's end, Hamlin would have implemented policies that would have laid
waste to the South in ways that Sherman would have seemed like a
beginner.

I suspect that in twenty
years, with the economy humming, urban sprawl diminished, and rational
land use implemented, that people will say "Wow. That Supreme Court had
a good idea." And so, contra the Northern Ireland scenario, I wonder
what benefits might have flowed from a Hamlin presidency. Repatriation,
perhaps?

....Again, read the Communist Manifesto. This was quite probably the
biggest blunder the Supremes have made in their entire history, and
those who voted for it need to be taken out and hung like traitors.
Mark my words on this one, rev - within those 20 years, you're going
to see a *lot* of disenfranchised citizens royally buggered by
corporate interests taking over their property in order to build an
office building that looks nicer than the house they lived in.

Bank on it. The corporate *******s and the city governments who
prostitute to them sure as hell will...


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"OM" om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote
in message ...

...Not as vanishing as you'd like to think. While the racism element
is, for the most part, the fact that Texas was the sole state out of
the Confederacy that truly had the legal right on paper to secede
still irks many.

Might irk them, but not necessarily true.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texas.asp (last paragraph).

The right to divide into up to 4 additional states was an issue (though as
that article points out was superflous anyway since the US Constitution
already providedfortaht.)