Dreaming of Pad 39-E

[kwan3217]

View attachment 240A launch window for Mars opens once every 26 months, with the next one being in November 2011. While each window has better or worse alignment, all transfers are roughly the same in the most general sense. I don't see any reason to wait longer than 2013 or so. Pretend we have maximum budget priority like back in the Apollo days, since in a sense we do. Let's pick the best window in the next 10 years and use it. Maybe two consecutive windows, one for a cargo ship and one for crew. This way we know the cargo has arrived before we commit to launching the crew after it.

The NASA baseline mission requires 7 Ares-V class missions to send two spaceships to Mars, one for cargo and one for crew. These are done over the course of 140 days. Back in Apollo, they could get a Saturn V off of each pad once every 60 days. I don't think that the current LC-39 has enough pads to support our launch requirements. It was originally designed with three pads, extendable to five. I would really like to see an Orbiter LC-39 with five pads, one for Saturn, one or two for Shuttle, and two or three for Ares. Saturn IB and V can use the same pad, Shuttle and SideMountHLV can use the same pads, and Ares I and V can use the same pads. Since Saturn and Ares both use clean pads, they may be compatible with each other.

(Not that I want to use Saturn for OFMM, just that I want an LC-39 that can launch anything LC-39 has or will launch.)

Of course this all presumes we want to use LC-39, but Wideawake by itself can't handle the load either, so Wideawake would have to be expanded also, or we maybe could use both.

The map on Wikipedia shows the four-pad LC-39. Pads A-C from South to North, are solid. Only the southernmost, pads A and B were built. Pad D is dotted, directly west of pad C, and Pad E would be north of pad C, forming an equilateral triangle with pads C and D.

Of course the ideal thing would be a Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center with all the pads reactivated, 1-47, so that anything it has launched, it can launch.

Update: Dream Realized!
View attachment 242View attachment 241

 

[Izack]

Hmm...that's not a bad idea. It would cut time down by a lot, and that means whatever is being built in orbit doesn't have to hang around up there for as long.

 

[Chipstone306]

My concern would be more logistical....workers. Staffing THAT many launch pads as well as keeping up with maintenance would be enormous. Most people would not want to drive 4 hrs to work so they would need to be close by. In theory an excellent idea that many pads would allow quick construction. However that many launches with optimum weather would be a feat

 

[kwan3217]

Remember that I didn't make this up, the guys planning LC-39 did. Based on their experience with the V-2 and Atlas, which had only something like a 25% success rate in their early test series. There is a reason they built ICBM row with eight near-identical pads.

Originally it was thought that Saturn would require something like 10-20 flights before it became operational. As it turned out, Saturn I went 10 for 10, Saturn IB 4 for 4, and Saturn V required two flights before being pronounced operational and going on to provide 11 of 11 successful operational launches.

It became evident that Saturn was one nice rocket while LC-39 was being built, so they could massively scale back the complex. They ended up going from three with an option for two more, to two, with an option for one, which was never built. Pad B was only used once as part of the basic moon flight program, for Apollo 10. This was during an incredible series where they flew Apollo 8 in December 1968, Apollo 9 in March 1969, Apollo 10 in May, and Apollo 11 in July.

The Apollo guys thought this would work, but that they didn't need it. Launching 7 Ares V class missions for one Mars mission might need it.

If you want to do something, there are many ways.
If you don't, there are many reasons.
--Old Tagalog Proverb