Byeman said:
miraglia said:
What would be the gain in payload SRB-X if it used the new SRB carbon fiber?
The answer is meaningless since there is no Titan second stage for the concept and a FWC SRM was available in 1986.
The idea was a kludge in the first place. Just NASA scrambling not to lose work to what became the Titan IV.
True... plus, SRB-X never addressed the problem that even Ares V was running up against-- it's simply TOO DARN HEAVY to work well with the existing infrastructure at KSC-- the Ares V was getting SO heavy, that combined with the mass of the MLP, it was coming up against the limits of the VAB foundations and the Pad foundations. Ares V was going to require and all-new six-truck crawler to transport it to the pads, and serious rework of the crawlerways to keep it from sinking into the swamps at SLC-39. That was just with ten booster segments...
SRB-X would have run into the same problems... two 4-segment SRB's plus the relatively lightweight ET and orbiter (by comparison anyway) were all the existing crawlers and MLP's could handle... and they could BARELY handle them... Remember Saturn V, being a liquid rocket, was moved EMPTY (well, full of air) and thus was much lighter than the two Shuttle SRB's, which, being solid propellant, must be moved FULLY FUELLED. I've seen design proposals for vehicles with up to four SRB's, but there is NO WAY that the infrastructure at KSC could support them, not without being COMPLETELY reworked and beefed up! That would run into the billions and make any such vehicles non-starters.
Liquid rockets keep the weight down, so you can build a MUCH bigger rocket (capable of carrying MUCH larger payloads) than a solid-boosted rocket without overloading the crawlers, crawlerways, and other infrastructure at KSC. In fact, the biggest limitation to the size of the liquid rocket is the blast and acoustic limits at the pads at KSC (11 million pounds IIRC). As it is, SRB's max everything out, and so you can't make an SRB-equipped rocket much bigger than present designs without hitting the limits of what KSC can handle.
Saturn V was going to get around this with its solid-booster equipped variants by moving the rocket from the VAB to pad, THEN stacking the SRB's and attaching them to the Saturn V ON THE PAD... hence the crawlers and crawlerways never had to carry the combined weight of the Saturn V vehicle, the LUT/MLP, AND the heavy fully-fuelled SRB's at the same time... the segments would be brought to the pad by crawler and lifted and mated on the pad by a special booster assembly facility which itself would be carried to the pad via crawler.
If you want a BIG, POWERFUL rocket, revive the F-1 or build an equivalent high-thrust kerosene, propane, or even methane powered first stage/booster engine. Ditch the expensive SRB's and leave them for where they work best-- in missile silos and small solid boosters on EELV's...
Later! OL JR
