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The Super Guppy

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Name Date

Predict

Some rocket parts are 15 to 20 feet wide. They’re too big for regular cargo planes. They’re also too fragile for a long, bumpy ride down the highway. Could a plane carry a rocket part that big inside its body?

Circle one. Yes / No

Why?

Watch

  1. Have you heard of the Super Guppy?youtube.com/shorts/VzgMYgg4Fwc

Word of the day

Aeronautics (air-uh-NAW-tiks). Designing, building and flying aircraft, plus the study of flight through the air. It’s the A in NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Word partComes fromMeaning
aero-Greek āḗrair
naut-Greek naûs, by way of nautikósship
-icsLatin -ica, from Greek -ikaa science or field of study
  • In Greek myth, the Argonauts sailed with Jason on the ship Argo. Their name means “crewman of the ship Argo.”
  • Smoke and fog are aerosols, mixes of tiny particles spread through a gas.

Bonus words. Fuselage (FYOO-suh-lahzh) is the main body of a plane. The word comes from the Latin word for spindle, after the plane’s tube shape. A turboprop (TUR-boh-prop) is an engine where a gas turbine spins a propeller. The Super Guppy flies on four of them.

Questions

  1. Engineers define a problem by its criteria, what a good solution must do, and its constraints, the limits a solution has to work within. The video says a rocket’s parts are often built in different parts of the country, even different parts of the world. Some parts are 15 to 20 feet wide. They’re too big for regular cargo planes and too fragile for hundreds or thousands of miles of potholes on bumpy highways. NASA has to bring all of these parts together in one place. Using the video, name one criterion and three constraints for that job.

    Hint. A criterion describes success. A constraint is a limit, like the size of a part.

  2. In the early 1960s, NASA shipped big rocket stages to Florida by barge, through the Gulf of Mexico or the Panama Canal. The trip took 18 to 25 days. NASA calls cargo like this oversized. Then, in 1961, came the Pregnant Guppy. The first Guppy plane was built to carry part of a Saturn rocket, and it made the same kind of trip in about 18 hours. Why did NASA need a new plane like the Pregnant Guppy instead of a regular cargo plane? And how many times faster was the flight than the fastest barge trip?

    Hint. Could a regular cargo plane even fit a rocket stage? For the speed, change days to hours first.

  3. The video says the Super Guppy’s nose hinges 110 degrees to the side, and crews drive the spacecraft straight into the plane. NASA’s user’s guide fills in the steps. A loader lifts the cargo up to the cargo floor, about 11 feet off the ground. Then a winch pulls the cargo in on rollers. Which constraint does the swing nose solve? And why would a regular side door fail for a spacecraft 16.5 feet wide?

    Hint. How big an opening does each kind of door give you? Compare that with the width of the cargo.

Claim, evidence, reasoning

NASA’s Super Guppy started as a KC-97 airframe that went into service in 1953. Other cargo planes can carry more weight, but few match the Super Guppy’s cargo room. Answer with a claim, evidence and reasoning on the lines below. Why does NASA keep flying a plane this old instead of using the biggest modern cargo planes?

Hint. What does rocket hardware need most from a cargo plane, room or weight?

Claim

Evidence

Reasoning

Going further: planning the trip

  1. In 2019, NASA had to get the Orion spacecraft for Artemis I from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio for testing. Then Orion had to come back. NASA picked Mansfield Lahm Airport, 41 miles from Plum Brook Station by highway, as the Super Guppy’s landing site. You’re planning Orion’s trip. Break the round trip into legs. For each leg, pick how to move Orion and give one reason based on size, fragility or distance.

    Hint. Start with the longest leg. Then figure out how Orion gets from the airport to the test site and back.

  2. Sensors on the Super Guppy’s cargo rails recorded the airlift of the Orion spacecraft for Artemis I. During landing, the sensors measured a sideways push on the cargo. NASA’s rules for designing cargo supports hadn’t included a sideways push. NASA added one. Why would engineers change their rules for protecting cargo after reading sensor data from one flight?

    Hint. What did the old rules assume? What did the flight show?

Exit ticket

For each rocket part, NASA weighs three constraints, size, fragility and distance, before picking how to move the part. Pick one rocket or spacecraft part from this lesson. Which way did NASA move the part, and how do its size, fragility and distance explain that choice?

Hint. Start with the part’s width. Then think about the length of the trip and the bumps along the way. Orion’s trip to Ohio makes a good example.

Sources