Jeff Findley ha scritto:

From past discussions, I believe I remember that the crawlers can't handle
the weight of four SRB's. Note that the SRB segments are solid fuel and
come fueled from the factory. These things are freaking heavy!
Astronautix.com says they're 1,299,990 lb each fully fueled. By comparison,
the first stage of the Saturn V was 298,104 lb empty. The shuttle's ET is
65,980 lb empty. So adding two of these means adding about 2.6 million
pounds to the stack since you're not going to save much by "slimming down"
the center stage.

From what I understand, that's why the launch tower was taken off the MLP
when they converted them from the Saturn V to shuttle configuration. The
SRB's are *heavy* when compared to an empty liquid fueled stage of the same
performance.

I suppose you could scrap the existing MLP's entirely and build newer,
lighter ones to offset the mass of the two extra SRB's, but I think that's
still a lot to ask for since the MLP is about 9 million pounds. I'm not
sure what would have to change, if anything, in the flame trench. New flame
deflectors?


the AresV mass will be over 3350 mT at lift-off (65% higher than a
Shuttle that is about 2000 mT) and the main tank diameter will be 10 m
(vs. the 8.4 m of the Shuttle) so, EVERYTHING must be CHANGED and
REINFORCED to launch the AresV

my AresX will weigh about 15% more than an AresV (then, about 3800 mT)
since it must lift the same payload + an extra 15% of mass (the
Orion) ...not a big problem

the cost of the (AresV OR AresX) launch pad will be a minimal fraction
of the ESAS costs and just made ONCE

however, I think that NASA should evaluate the option of an on-pad
assembly of the AresV/X 1st stage

G.