Re: Ares V to require construction of a new "super crawler"?

In article <f9g934-9hd2.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Glen Overby <coreSPAMsample@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
brand new crawlers, or would the old ones be refitted and strengthened?

The NASA crawler carrying rockets standing up has always seemed a bit
precarious compared to the primitive simplicity of the R7/Soyuz horizontal
transport on a train.

Bear in mind that NASA adopted the crawler scheme for LC-39 after some bad
experiences with rail systems for moving service towers etc. at LC-37.
Even "primitive simplicity" can get very expensive if you scale it up far
enough.

...It would also be a good time to revisit the model of
constructing the launcher in the VAB and transporting it to the pad. The
"occupied pad" model with a rocket on it being built on it may be a better
alternative for a rocket that is only going to launch a couple of times a
year...

That's pretty definitely what you'd do, for that launch volume, if you
were starting from scratch. It's not entirely clear that it's the right
thing to do when you've got an existing VAB to work with.

...In another thread, the explaination of
loading payloads at the pad vs VAB had to do with VAB scheduling, and was an
assumption based on a high flight rate.

Actually, that's sort of an intermediate case: it's what you end up doing
if you can't just roll out and launch -- if you still have to sit on the
pad for a while -- but you nevertheless want to be able to accommodate
substantial traffic. For a *high* flight rate, what you want to do is
roll out only a few hours before launch, with everything possible already
ready, and only cryo fueling and crew loading to be done on the pad. (As
witness how Ariane 5 does things.) That way, *all* the preparations are
done in a controlled environment, which is easier, cheaper, and quicker.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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