--- title: The Worlds Most Incredible Heavy Machinery description: "Humans have relied on machines to help us perform complicated or difficult tasks for as long as we could figure out how to build them. Whether it was a simple pulley system or the world's fastest airplane, people have spent millennia building machines that could make our lives easier and help us get work done faster.\n\nWhile we could talk about some of the most technologically sophisticated machines like the Large Hadron Collider or the International Space Station, today we're going to be focusing on something much more simple, but no less important: the world of heavy machinery. Whether these metal behemoths are designed to dig, lift, or carry, they are capable of performing herculean feats that lay the foundation for the construction of everything else we want to do. From mining ore to transporting spaceships, these machines play a fundamental role in making all of humanity's dreams a reality.\n\n## NASA Crawler Transporters\n\nFirst constructed in 1965, NASA's pair of crawler transporters held the record for the largest self-propelled land vehicles in the world for over 45 years. The crawlers were built with one specific purpose in mind: carry spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. This was first done in 1966 with the Saturn IB, and the crawlers continued fulfilling this mission for decades without ever being replaced. While their official names are crawler transport 1 and crawler transport 2, they have been given the affection nicknames \"Hans and Franz\", an homage to the fictional bodybuilders from a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live.\n\nSince the purpose of the crawlers is just to transport large, heavy objects, visually their design is little more than a giant, raised platform. This platform is 40 meters long and 35 meters wide, with an adjustable elevation ranging from 6 to 8 meters. It utilizes eight tracks, similar to tank treads, with two in each corner of the crawler. In total the crawlers weigh 3,000 tons each, but they are able to carry three times that much, roughly the weight of the Eiffel Tower.\n\nIt takes a lot of power to move something that big, and to that end the crawlers each came equipped with a pair of 16 cylinder ALCO 251C diesel engines, along with a 5,000 gallon gas tank. Even though the launch pad is only 4.2 miles away from the Vehicle Assembly Building, that 5,000 gallons is only enough to make four round trips thanks to the 125 gallons per mile fuel efficiency. But despite being a relatively short trip, it's by no means a fast one. Carrying that much weight is obviously a challenge, so the crawlers' travel at 1 mph when loaded and 2 mph when unloaded, making the round trip nearly 6.5 hours, plus the time to load and unload the cargo.\n\nThough crawler transport 1 hasn't been utilized since the 1980s, in the early 2010s, crawler transport 2 underwent a series of upgrades including new engines, brakes, and exhaust systems. This upgraded model has been used as recently as the 2022 Artemis 1 launch, while NASA has sought to lease crawler transport 1 to be used for commercial launch vehicles.\n\n## Belaz 75710\n\nLike most pieces of heavy machinery, dump trucks have consistently been increasing in size. Larger vehicles are more efficient, both in terms of time and cost, so companies are incentivized to keep going bigger. The larger the payload capacity of a dump truck, the fewer trips it requires to move greater amounts. This desire for improved efficiency led to the creation of the Belaz 75710, the world's largest dump truck.\n\nProduced by Belarusian auto manufacturer BelAZ, the 75710 is designed primarily for use in open-pit mining operations. This type of mining requires large amounts of material to be transported relatively short distances, making payload capacity the most important consideration for such a vehicle.\n\nThe 75710 is 20.6 meters long, nearly 10 meters wide, and 8.25 meters tall. For those in the United States at least, that makes the area of the bed of this truck the same size as 16 standard parking spots, or about 10 times the area of a typical dump truck.\n\nIt weighs 400 tons, but BelAZ boasts that it has a maximum payload capacity of 500 tons. The whole thing is powered by a pair of 16 cylinder MTU Detroit Diesel engines, each with 2,300 horsepower. According to the manufacturer, this supersized dump truck is able to travel at speeds up to 25 mph when fully loaded, and 45 mph when unloaded.\n\nInterestingly, despite its massive dimensions, the bed of the truck is actually relatively shallow. It was designed this way to limit how much material could be loaded onto it at a time, as ore is particularly dense and heavy. This constraint makes sense since the 75710 was designed with mining operations in mind, but that does make it suboptimal for transporting lighter materials, as the limited volume it could move would be a waste of its impressive payload capacity.\n\nOf course, these oversized dump trucks are just used to haul materials from one place to another. They still need that material loaded onto them, and the increasing size of haul trucks necessitated larger machines to load materials onto them. And that brings us to our next vehicle.\n\n## Le Tourneau L-2350\n\nThe LeTourneau L-2350 is the world's largest front end loader, and it's perfect for piling large quantities of material into dump trucks at mining and construction sites. These front end loaders were originally created by American manufacturer LeTourneau in 2000, but in 2011 the company was purchased by Joy Global. They renamed it the P&H L-2350 Wheel Loader, and it is now produced by Japanese industrial manufacturer Komatsu Limited.\n\nThe L-2350 loader is 6 meters tall, 8 meters wide, and 20 meters long when the bucket is on the ground. But that bucket certainly adds a lot to the length, as the standard bucket for the L-2350 is 40.5 cubic meters (53 cubic yards). To give some sense of scale, if the bucket was filled with soil, there would be enough to cover an entire NBA basketball court with 2 inches of soil and still have 6 cubic yards left over.\n\nThese front end loaders weigh nearly 300 tons, and the bucket has a maximum payload of 80 tons. The bucket can be raised just over 7 meters in the air and it has a 3.5 meter reach. This allows the loaders to deposit their payloads in the center of a dump truck.\n\nWhile the L-2350 may not be nearly as large as today's other entries, that doesn't mean that it was easy to create. There was one problem in particular that arose during the design process, and that was the tires. The NASA crawlers used tracks and the Belaz 75710 has eight tires to support its massive weight, but the loader was only going to use four tires.\n\nThe eight tire design of the dump truck gives it a turn radius of 31 meters, but loaders need to be more maneuverable than that. Granted the L-2350 does have a turn radius of 21 meters which is pretty large, but that is still a 50% increase in maneuverability. But the reason a four tire design was so difficult for the loader was that there weren't any tires on the market that could actually support it.\n\nTo that end, LeTourneau contacted Firestone to make the 07057SRG tires, a tire that Firestone manufactures exclusively for the L-2350. It also happens to be the largest tire in the world, with each one weighing 8 tons and being 4 meters (13 feet) in diameter. It's only fitting that one of the world's largest pieces of heavy machinery would also require one of the world's largest individual parts.\n\n## Bertha\n\nThe name \"Big Bertha\" rose to fame during World War I as the nickname for a German siege howitzer, and since then it has been used repeatedly in popular culture for machines and weapons of incredible size. But while the tunnel boring machine known as Bertha is indeed massive, its name is not a reference to the German siege weapon. Instead, it was named after Seattle's first female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes.\n\nBertha was constructed specifically for the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel project in Seattle. The Alaskan Way Viaduct was an elevated highway that became damaged during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. While the highway was able to be repaired and remain useable, there were concerns that this could only ever be a temporary solution. Out of fear that another earthquake or other damage could destroy the viaduct entirely, it was decided that they would bore a tunnel underground in which they could build roads to replace the raised highway.\n\nThe Hitachi Zosen Corporation from Osaka, Japan was contracted to manufacture the boring machine, and it was assembled in Seattle in 2015. Bertha's cutterhead had a diameter of 17.5 meters, it was nearly 100 meters long, and it weighed 6,700 tons. It cost $80 million to manufacture, and at the time it was the world's largest tunnel boring machine. It remains the largest earth pressure balance boring machine ever built, though in 2015 a slurry shield boring machine broke the overall record by 0.1 meters in diameter.\n\nExcavation of the tunnel began in July of 2013 and was expected to only take 14 months, but damage to the cutterhead resulted in a two year delay. The boring resumed in December of 2015, and by March of 2017 the 2.8 km long tunnel was completed.\n\nThough the project may have been a success, unfortunately Bertha did not survive the ordeal. It remains unclear what caused Bertha to sustain such unexpectedly heavy damage over the course of the project, and we'll never be able to solve that mystery. By the time the tunnel was completed, virtually none of the parts could be reused. Instead the boring machine was disassembled, and most of it was melted down.\n\nWhile Bertha may have only been used for one construction project, it remains an incredible and historic piece of heavy machinery.\n\n## Bagger 293\n\nBagger 293 looks like something straight out of a video game or a Transformers movie. From a distance it looks like an enormous, mechanical monstrosity equipped with a giant saw blade, the sort of thing that might lay siege to an entire city. Of course, what looks like a saw from a distance is actually a massive bucket wheel.\n\nManufactured by the German industrial company TAKRAF, Bagger 293 is the world's largest bucket wheel excavator. Not only that, it's the largest terrestrial vehicle of any kind. This excavator is 225 meters long and 46 meters wide, basically the length and width of two football fields placed end to end. It is also 96 meters tall, about the height of a 30 story building. This gargantuan vehicle weighs 15,650 tons.\n\nBucket wheel excavators are used in surface mining, and Bagger 293 was built specifically for use at the brown coal mine near Hambach, Germany. There, it moves incredible amounts of soil and coal every day. The wheel, which is 70 meters in diameter, contains 18 buckets, each of which has a capacity of 15 cubic meters. The buckets are dumped onto a series of conveyor belts that bring the contents to the nearby coal plant operated by RWE Power AG, the excavator's current owner. This power plant also provides the electricity used to power the excavator.\n\nDespite the machine's massive size, it only takes a crew of five people to keep Bagger 293 running. Still, that's no small task for the crew. The 30 story tall excavator has over 2,000 stairs and half a mile of walkways, and a typical shift may require the workers to walk six or more miles each day, plus however many stairs they have to climb. But with three separate crews of five, the excavator is able to remain in operation 24 hours a day. This results in it being able to move over 240,000 tons of dirt and coal every single day, which is almost three tons every second.\n\nOf course, in order to qualify as the world's largest terrestrial vehicle rather than just a giant machine, Bagger 293 has to be capable of driving as well. And while it absolutely can, the crew are likely jealous of the comparatively breakneck speeds reached by NASA's crawler transporters. The giant excavator has a top speed of about 0.5 mph, which it can use to reposition itself within the mine that it usually occupies.\n\nIt will sometimes travel longer distances, but this is a monumental undertaking. That 0.5 mph speed is only when everything is going perfectly, but terrain conditions as well as the logistics of keeping the vehicle powered do not allow it to maintain such a high speed for the entire journey. In order to travel just a dozen miles, something that would already take 24 hours at top speed, it realistically will take multiple weeks to move Bagger 293. But for those that seek to utilize the excavator's incredible output, this machine is well worth the wait.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- NASA's crawler transporters, built in 1965, each weigh 3,000 tons and can carry 9,000 tons of spacecraft at just 1 mph.\n- The Belaz 75710 is the world's largest dump truck, weighing 400 tons with a 500-ton payload capacity powered by two 2,300-horsepower engines.\n- The Le Tourneau L-2350 uses the world's largest tires, each weighing 8 tons and measuring 4 meters in diameter, made exclusively by Firestone.\n- Seattle's tunnel boring machine Bertha was 6,700 tons with a 17.5-meter cutterhead, but was melted down after completing one 2.8 km tunnel.\n- Bagger 293 is the largest terrestrial vehicle at 15,650 tons and 96 meters tall, moving 240,000 tons of material daily with only five crew members.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What are the official names and nicknames of NASA's crawler transporters?\n\nThe official names are crawler transport 1 and crawler transport 2, and their affectionate nicknames are 'Hans and Franz,' an homage to the fictional bodybuilders from a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live.\n\n### How much weight can NASA's crawler transporters carry, and how does that compare to a famous landmark?\n\nThe crawlers can carry roughly three times their own weight (3,000 tons each), which is approximately the weight of the Eiffel Tower.\n\n### What is the fuel efficiency of NASA's crawler transporters, and how many round trips can they make on a full tank?\n\nThe crawlers get 125 gallons per mile, and their 5,000 gallon gas tank is only enough to make four round trips between the Vehicle Assembly Building and the launch pad.\n\n### What is the Belaz 75710, and what is its maximum payload capacity?\n\nThe Belaz 75710 is the world's largest dump truck, produced by Belarusian auto manufacturer BelAZ, with a maximum payload capacity of 500 tons.\n\n### Why is the bed of the Belaz 75710 relatively shallow despite its massive size?\n\nThe bed was designed to be relatively shallow to limit how much material could be loaded onto it at a time, since ore is particularly dense and heavy. This makes it suboptimal for transporting lighter materials.\n\n### What makes the tires on the Le Tourneau L-2350 special?\n\nThe L-2350 uses the 07057SRG tires, which Firestone manufactures exclusively for this loader. They are the largest tires in the world, with each one weighing 8 tons and being 4 meters (13 feet) in diameter.\n\n### Who was the tunnel boring machine Bertha named after?\n\nBertha was named after Seattle's first female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes, not after the German siege howitzer 'Big Bertha' from World War I.\n\n### What happened to Bertha after the tunnel project was completed?\n\nBy the time the tunnel was completed, virtually none of Bertha's parts could be reused. The boring machine was disassembled, and most of it was melted down.\n\n### What is Bagger 293, and what makes it unique in terms of size?\n\nBagger 293 is the world's largest bucket wheel excavator and the largest terrestrial vehicle of any kind. It is 225 meters long, 46 meters wide, 96 meters tall, and weighs 15,650 tons.\n\n### How much material can Bagger 293 move in a day, and how many people are needed to operate it?\n\nBagger 293 can move over 240,000 tons of dirt and coal every single day (almost three tons every second), and it only takes a crew of five people to keep it running, with three separate crews allowing 24-hour operation.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: The Worlds Most Incredible Heavy Machinery](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ITEOppMh0Y)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Vehicle_Assembly_Building_and_mobile_launcher_for_the_Artemis_I_mission.jpg) by NASA/Kim Shiflett / openverse, by-sa.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/worlds-most-incredible-heavy-machinery.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/worlds-most-incredible-heavy-machinery datePublished: 2026-06-17 dateModified: 2026-06-17 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/0ITEOppMh0Y/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: c39d908954cda6210a8dc19a6f40e70606e9410fc51263966655e4754b071de8 tokens: 4105 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/worlds-most-incredible-heavy-machinery.md.summary.md --- Humans have relied on machines to help us perform complicated or difficult tasks for as long as we could figure out how to build them. Whether it was a simple pulley system or the world's fastest airplane, people have spent millennia building machines that could make our lives easier and help us get work done faster. While we could talk about some of the most technologically sophisticated machines like the Large Hadron Collider or the International Space Station, today we're going to be focusing on something much more simple, but no less important: the world of heavy machinery. Whether these metal behemoths are designed to dig, lift, or carry, they are capable of performing herculean feats that lay the foundation for the construction of everything else we want to do. From mining ore to transporting spaceships, these machines play a fundamental role in making all of humanity's dreams a reality. ## NASA Crawler Transporters First constructed in 1965, NASA's pair of crawler transporters held the record for the largest self-propelled land vehicles in the world for over 45 years. The crawlers were built with one specific purpose in mind: carry spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. This was first done in 1966 with the Saturn IB, and the crawlers continued fulfilling this mission for decades without ever being replaced. While their official names are crawler transport 1 and crawler transport 2, they have been given the affection nicknames "Hans and Franz", an homage to the fictional bodybuilders from a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live. Since the purpose of the crawlers is just to transport large, heavy objects, visually their design is little more than a giant, raised platform. This platform is 40 meters long and 35 meters wide, with an adjustable elevation ranging from 6 to 8 meters. It utilizes eight tracks, similar to tank treads, with two in each corner of the crawler. In total the crawlers weigh 3,000 tons each, but they are able to carry three times that much, roughly the weight of the Eiffel Tower. It takes a lot of power to move something that big, and to that end the crawlers each came equipped with a pair of 16 cylinder ALCO 251C diesel engines, along with a 5,000 gallon gas tank. Even though the launch pad is only 4.2 miles away from the Vehicle Assembly Building, that 5,000 gallons is only enough to make four round trips thanks to the 125 gallons per mile fuel efficiency. But despite being a relatively short trip, it's by no means a fast one. Carrying that much weight is obviously a challenge, so the crawlers' travel at 1 mph when loaded and 2 mph when unloaded, making the round trip nearly 6.5 hours, plus the time to load and unload the cargo. Though crawler transport 1 hasn't been utilized since the 1980s, in the early 2010s, crawler transport 2 underwent a series of upgrades including new engines, brakes, and exhaust systems. This upgraded model has been used as recently as the 2022 Artemis 1 launch, while NASA has sought to lease crawler transport 1 to be used for commercial launch vehicles. ## Belaz 75710 Like most pieces of heavy machinery, dump trucks have consistently been increasing in size. Larger vehicles are more efficient, both in terms of time and cost, so companies are incentivized to keep going bigger. The larger the payload capacity of a dump truck, the fewer trips it requires to move greater amounts. This desire for improved efficiency led to the creation of the Belaz 75710, the world's largest dump truck. Produced by Belarusian auto manufacturer BelAZ, the 75710 is designed primarily for use in open-pit mining operations. This type of mining requires large amounts of material to be transported relatively short distances, making payload capacity the most important consideration for such a vehicle. The 75710 is 20.6 meters long, nearly 10 meters wide, and 8.25 meters tall. For those in the United States at least, that makes the area of the bed of this truck the same size as 16 standard parking spots, or about 10 times the area of a typical dump truck. It weighs 400 tons, but BelAZ boasts that it has a maximum payload capacity of 500 tons. The whole thing is powered by a pair of 16 cylinder MTU Detroit Diesel engines, each with 2,300 horsepower. According to the manufacturer, this supersized dump truck is able to travel at speeds up to 25 mph when fully loaded, and 45 mph when unloaded. Interestingly, despite its massive dimensions, the bed of the truck is actually relatively shallow. It was designed this way to limit how much material could be loaded onto it at a time, as ore is particularly dense and heavy. This constraint makes sense since the 75710 was designed with mining operations in mind, but that does make it suboptimal for transporting lighter materials, as the limited volume it could move would be a waste of its impressive payload capacity. Of course, these oversized dump trucks are just used to haul materials from one place to another. They still need that material loaded onto them, and the increasing size of haul trucks necessitated larger machines to load materials onto them. And that brings us to our next vehicle. ## Le Tourneau L-2350 The LeTourneau L-2350 is the world's largest front end loader, and it's perfect for piling large quantities of material into dump trucks at mining and construction sites. These front end loaders were originally created by American manufacturer LeTourneau in 2000, but in 2011 the company was purchased by Joy Global. They renamed it the P&H L-2350 Wheel Loader, and it is now produced by Japanese industrial manufacturer Komatsu Limited. The L-2350 loader is 6 meters tall, 8 meters wide, and 20 meters long when the bucket is on the ground. But that bucket certainly adds a lot to the length, as the standard bucket for the L-2350 is 40.5 cubic meters (53 cubic yards). To give some sense of scale, if the bucket was filled with soil, there would be enough to cover an entire NBA basketball court with 2 inches of soil and still have 6 cubic yards left over. These front end loaders weigh nearly 300 tons, and the bucket has a maximum payload of 80 tons. The bucket can be raised just over 7 meters in the air and it has a 3.5 meter reach. This allows the loaders to deposit their payloads in the center of a dump truck. While the L-2350 may not be nearly as large as today's other entries, that doesn't mean that it was easy to create. There was one problem in particular that arose during the design process, and that was the tires. The NASA crawlers used tracks and the Belaz 75710 has eight tires to support its massive weight, but the loader was only going to use four tires. The eight tire design of the dump truck gives it a turn radius of 31 meters, but loaders need to be more maneuverable than that. Granted the L-2350 does have a turn radius of 21 meters which is pretty large, but that is still a 50% increase in maneuverability. But the reason a four tire design was so difficult for the loader was that there weren't any tires on the market that could actually support it. To that end, LeTourneau contacted Firestone to make the 07057SRG tires, a tire that Firestone manufactures exclusively for the L-2350. It also happens to be the largest tire in the world, with each one weighing 8 tons and being 4 meters (13 feet) in diameter. It's only fitting that one of the world's largest pieces of heavy machinery would also require one of the world's largest individual parts. ## Bertha The name "Big Bertha" rose to fame during World War I as the nickname for a German siege howitzer, and since then it has been used repeatedly in popular culture for machines and weapons of incredible size. But while the tunnel boring machine known as Bertha is indeed massive, its name is not a reference to the German siege weapon. Instead, it was named after Seattle's first female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes. Bertha was constructed specifically for the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel project in Seattle. The Alaskan Way Viaduct was an elevated highway that became damaged during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. While the highway was able to be repaired and remain useable, there were concerns that this could only ever be a temporary solution. Out of fear that another earthquake or other damage could destroy the viaduct entirely, it was decided that they would bore a tunnel underground in which they could build roads to replace the raised highway. The Hitachi Zosen Corporation from Osaka, Japan was contracted to manufacture the boring machine, and it was assembled in Seattle in 2015. Bertha's cutterhead had a diameter of 17.5 meters, it was nearly 100 meters long, and it weighed 6,700 tons. It cost $80 million to manufacture, and at the time it was the world's largest tunnel boring machine. It remains the largest earth pressure balance boring machine ever built, though in 2015 a slurry shield boring machine broke the overall record by 0.1 meters in diameter. Excavation of the tunnel began in July of 2013 and was expected to only take 14 months, but damage to the cutterhead resulted in a two year delay. The boring resumed in December of 2015, and by March of 2017 the 2.8 km long tunnel was completed. Though the project may have been a success, unfortunately Bertha did not survive the ordeal. It remains unclear what caused Bertha to sustain such unexpectedly heavy damage over the course of the project, and we'll never be able to solve that mystery. By the time the tunnel was completed, virtually none of the parts could be reused. Instead the boring machine was disassembled, and most of it was melted down. While Bertha may have only been used for one construction project, it remains an incredible and historic piece of heavy machinery. ## Bagger 293 Bagger 293 looks like something straight out of a video game or a Transformers movie. From a distance it looks like an enormous, mechanical monstrosity equipped with a giant saw blade, the sort of thing that might lay siege to an entire city. Of course, what looks like a saw from a distance is actually a massive bucket wheel. Manufactured by the German industrial company TAKRAF, Bagger 293 is the world's largest bucket wheel excavator. Not only that, it's the largest terrestrial vehicle of any kind. This excavator is 225 meters long and 46 meters wide, basically the length and width of two football fields placed end to end. It is also 96 meters tall, about the height of a 30 story building. This gargantuan vehicle weighs 15,650 tons. Bucket wheel excavators are used in surface mining, and Bagger 293 was built specifically for use at the brown coal mine near Hambach, Germany. There, it moves incredible amounts of soil and coal every day. The wheel, which is 70 meters in diameter, contains 18 buckets, each of which has a capacity of 15 cubic meters. The buckets are dumped onto a series of conveyor belts that bring the contents to the nearby coal plant operated by RWE Power AG, the excavator's current owner. This power plant also provides the electricity used to power the excavator. Despite the machine's massive size, it only takes a crew of five people to keep Bagger 293 running. Still, that's no small task for the crew. The 30 story tall excavator has over 2,000 stairs and half a mile of walkways, and a typical shift may require the workers to walk six or more miles each day, plus however many stairs they have to climb. But with three separate crews of five, the excavator is able to remain in operation 24 hours a day. This results in it being able to move over 240,000 tons of dirt and coal every single day, which is almost three tons every second. Of course, in order to qualify as the world's largest terrestrial vehicle rather than just a giant machine, Bagger 293 has to be capable of driving as well. And while it absolutely can, the crew are likely jealous of the comparatively breakneck speeds reached by NASA's crawler transporters. The giant excavator has a top speed of about 0.5 mph, which it can use to reposition itself within the mine that it usually occupies. It will sometimes travel longer distances, but this is a monumental undertaking. That 0.5 mph speed is only when everything is going perfectly, but terrain conditions as well as the logistics of keeping the vehicle powered do not allow it to maintain such a high speed for the entire journey. In order to travel just a dozen miles, something that would already take 24 hours at top speed, it realistically will take multiple weeks to move Bagger 293. But for those that seek to utilize the excavator's incredible output, this machine is well worth the wait. ## Key Takeaways - NASA's crawler transporters, built in 1965, each weigh 3,000 tons and can carry 9,000 tons of spacecraft at just 1 mph. - The Belaz 75710 is the world's largest dump truck, weighing 400 tons with a 500-ton payload capacity powered by two 2,300-horsepower engines. - The Le Tourneau L-2350 uses the world's largest tires, each weighing 8 tons and measuring 4 meters in diameter, made exclusively by Firestone. - Seattle's tunnel boring machine Bertha was 6,700 tons with a 17.5-meter cutterhead, but was melted down after completing one 2.8 km tunnel. - Bagger 293 is the largest terrestrial vehicle at 15,650 tons and 96 meters tall, moving 240,000 tons of material daily with only five crew members. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What are the official names and nicknames of NASA's crawler transporters? The official names are crawler transport 1 and crawler transport 2, and their affectionate nicknames are 'Hans and Franz,' an homage to the fictional bodybuilders from a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live. ### How much weight can NASA's crawler transporters carry, and how does that compare to a famous landmark? The crawlers can carry roughly three times their own weight (3,000 tons each), which is approximately the weight of the Eiffel Tower. ### What is the fuel efficiency of NASA's crawler transporters, and how many round trips can they make on a full tank? The crawlers get 125 gallons per mile, and their 5,000 gallon gas tank is only enough to make four round trips between the Vehicle Assembly Building and the launch pad. ### What is the Belaz 75710, and what is its maximum payload capacity? The Belaz 75710 is the world's largest dump truck, produced by Belarusian auto manufacturer BelAZ, with a maximum payload capacity of 500 tons. ### Why is the bed of the Belaz 75710 relatively shallow despite its massive size? The bed was designed to be relatively shallow to limit how much material could be loaded onto it at a time, since ore is particularly dense and heavy. This makes it suboptimal for transporting lighter materials. ### What makes the tires on the Le Tourneau L-2350 special? The L-2350 uses the 07057SRG tires, which Firestone manufactures exclusively for this loader. They are the largest tires in the world, with each one weighing 8 tons and being 4 meters (13 feet) in diameter. ### Who was the tunnel boring machine Bertha named after? Bertha was named after Seattle's first female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes, not after the German siege howitzer 'Big Bertha' from World War I. ### What happened to Bertha after the tunnel project was completed? By the time the tunnel was completed, virtually none of Bertha's parts could be reused. The boring machine was disassembled, and most of it was melted down. ### What is Bagger 293, and what makes it unique in terms of size? Bagger 293 is the world's largest bucket wheel excavator and the largest terrestrial vehicle of any kind. It is 225 meters long, 46 meters wide, 96 meters tall, and weighs 15,650 tons. ### How much material can Bagger 293 move in a day, and how many people are needed to operate it? Bagger 293 can move over 240,000 tons of dirt and coal every single day (almost three tons every second), and it only takes a crew of five people to keep it running, with three separate crews allowing 24-hour operation. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: The Worlds Most Incredible Heavy Machinery](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ITEOppMh0Y) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Vehicle_Assembly_Building_and_mobile_launcher_for_the_Artemis_I_mission.jpg) by NASA/Kim Shiflett / openverse, by-sa. ## Related Coverage