What's the heaviest rocket the Crawlers can carry?

D. Scott Ferrin wrote in
:

Excluding clusters of large solid motors, I'd say the
limiting factor with liquid fueled rockets are the
dimensions of the VAB doors. Empty tankage doesn't
weigh that much, since rockets have to be as light
as practical.

--Damon

"Damon Hill" wrote in message
31...
D. Scott Ferrin wrote in
:

Excluding clusters of large solid motors, I'd say the
limiting factor with liquid fueled rockets are the
dimensions of the VAB doors. Empty tankage doesn't
weigh that much, since rockets have to be as light
as practical.

But NASA wants the SDHLV, which will use SRB's. That brings up the
question, how many SRB's could you put on a SDHLV before you exceed the
crawler's limits?

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

"Jeff Findley" wrote in news:49280$432ed277
:


"Damon Hill" wrote in message
31...
D. Scott Ferrin wrote in
:

Excluding clusters of large solid motors, I'd say the
limiting factor with liquid fueled rockets are the
dimensions of the VAB doors. Empty tankage doesn't
weigh that much, since rockets have to be as light
as practical.

But NASA wants the SDHLV, which will use SRB's. That brings up the
question, how many SRB's could you put on a SDHLV before you exceed the
crawler's limits?

I think the Shuttle stack points at the answer. SDHLV
probably won't weigh much more than either Shuttle
or Saturn V. If more than two SRBs are ever employed,
then major modifications will have to be made to the
mobile launch platforms and it might be more practical
to build new equipment. The MLPs are already about
40 years old and have seen a lot of pounding.

I think NASA wants to keep the launch infrastructure
pretty much the way it already is. There will be changes,
of course.

--Damon