Hello everybody,in order to get usable dimensions for the scratch-building of the Payload Canister Transporter, I had to open up other sources, which took some time. For this I researched the Proceedings of various NASA conferences in which I actually found what I was looking for. Among other things, I came across this old photo of the transporter, which initially caused quite a bit of confusion for me, Source: Space Congress Proceedings 2. - 1980 (17th) A New Era In Technology (W. H. Rock)because one can see that the transporter has 24 twin wheel sets and therefore had not only 24 but a total of 48 wheels. Of course I had to get to the bottom of this and asked my friend James MacLaren about it, who also confirmed it to me, especially since he also wondered about it when he first saw this vehicle. Another open question was whether the transporter only had a driver's cabin on one side, as initially shown in the pictures, or perhaps on both sides, as is also was the case with the Crawler. And he also answered this question right away by saying that the transporter of the time had a cabin both on the front and on the back, although he was actually of the opinion (original sound): In truth, the thing did not have a front side or a back side. Didn't matter which way it was pointed. Driver gets in and "go". Real simple that way. Wherewith this detail was clarified too. The confirmation for this I finally got in a contribution by M. E. Donahue: Payload Transportation at KSC, held at the Space Shuttle Technical Conference (1983). Source: NASA Conference Publication 2342 Part 2 (M. E. Donahue)On it one can also read that the electrical, environmental, fluid and gas, and instrumentation services required by the payload during transportation are supplied by separate Subsystems, which one can see in the drawing above (Figure 3), - the Electrical Power Subsystem (EPS Modules), - the Environmental Control System (ECS Module), - the Instrumentation and Communication Subsystem (I&CS Module) and- the Fluid and Gas Subsystem (F&GS) (F&GS Module).This transporter is a true masterpiece of transport technology. Its elevating flat bed has a height of 1,8 m (6') but can be lowered to 1,6 m (5'-3'') depending on the terrain or raised to 2,1 m (7'3''). Its 24 twin wheel sets can be steered independently of one another and enable the transporter to move forwards, backwards and sideways or diagonally, or to rotate around its own axis like a merry-go-round. All each have separate brake and stabilization lifting systems, if you will a Jack of all trades device. Because payload handling will require precise movements, the transporter has a "creep mode" that permits it to move as slowly as 0,64 cm/s (0,25 in/s) or 0,023 km/h (0,014 mph). From this drawing I determined the dimensions of the Payload Canister for my scale (1:160), Source: NASA Conference Publication 2342 Part 2 (M. E. Donahue)L = 65' = 124 mm (1:160) x B = 18' = 34 mm (1:160) x H = 18'-7'' = 35 mm (1:160),and in the text one can also find the dimensions of the Transporter, so now I know what's in store for me.L = 65' = 124 mm (1:160) x B = 23' = 44 mm (1:160) x H = 6' = 11,5 mm (1:160)And that's enough for me to scratch-building, since I now know what the side view looked like, as well as the 'front/back side', as in this photo from the STS-6 CD-ROM can be seen here. Source: retrospaceimages.com (STS-6)Now I can think about whether I should start building the Transporter right away or postpone it for the time being ... The wheel sets remind me a lot of the 14 wheel sets of the main landing gears of my Antonov An-225, which is also waiting for me in my cupboard ... Source: flugzeug-lexikon.de (ILA_2010)In terms of structure, they should look similar to these one, only that the Transporter has twin wheel sets. Source: wikimedia.orgThat's just in order to get attuned a bit. , The Space Shuttle program ran from presidential approval in 1972 to its end in 2011. It was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the United States and NASA. The Space Shuttle, officially known as the Space Transportation System (STS), was the first reusable spacecraft to carry humans into orbit., Discovery was the third Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle to fly in space. It entered service in 1984 and retired from spaceflight as the oldest and most utilized orbiter. Discovery was flown on 39 Earth-orbital missions, spent a total of 365 days in space, and traveled almost 240 million kilometers (150 million miles)--more than the other orbiters..