Comments by "H. de Jong" (@h.dejong2531) on "How Do You Move a Skyscraper Sized Rocket?" video.

  1. SpaceX has no problem launching Falcons. They took a gamble with the Starship launch: they were working on launch pad improvements, but they didn't want to wait for those to be installed. A sample size of 1 doesn't justify the use of 'every'.
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  2. Construction on the launch pad was not finished, they just didn't want to wait for that.
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  3. The launch platform sits on top of the crawler. When it arrives at the pad, the crawler lowers the launch platform onto a set of pillars, and then drives away. They're parked next to the VAB.
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  4.  @billshiff2060  The Apollo 11 press kit says the MSS is moved back to its parking spot 11 hours before launch. It doesn't say where the crawler goes after that, but it makes sense it stays with the MSS. When the Apollo program ended and pad 39A was repurposed for the Space Shuttle, the MSS was replaced with a rotating service structure that stays at the launch pad.
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  5.  @GerardHammond  This video shows the launch pad sitting on pillars in the VAB, ready to be picked up by the crawler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdCs2wNGXJE
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  6. No. A rocket has to reach a speed of 8000 meters per second. A plane can provide no more than 300 m/s of that, i.e. 3.7%. The relationship between speed and cost is not linear so the potential savings are a bit better than 3%, but in general the cost savings of making a rocket a bit smaller are tiny: most of the cost is in design and testing, not in the materials that you'd save by making the rocket a bit smaller. And there's a big mass constraint. Even the largest airplanes can only carry a rocket with a payload of less than one ton.
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  7.  @fingerprint8479  The Russians had an advantage: Baikonur is dry land, not a swamp on the coast. This meant they didn't need to build the launch pads above the grade, so rails could easily be used. Horizontal transport has a drawback: the rocket has to be built stronger, to withstand the transport loads while lying horizontal. If you design a rocket for vertical integration, you can build a lighter construction and end up with a rocket that can carry more payload.
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  8. this has caused problems for NASA as well. In particular, the Shuttle solid rocket boosters are made by ATK in Utah and their size is limited by the only mode of transport available: rails. This means that the SRB has to be transported in sections, and stacked in Cape Canaveral. Which meant the sections have to be linked with transport joints, which have O-rings which caused the Challenger disaster.
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  9.  @jeanbonnefoy1377  No, the Cape was officially called Cape Kennedy 1963-1973.
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  10. It's easy to prove Oakley wrong. 1. I can see satellites at night with the naked eye. 2. I can point a dish antenna at a point 36,000 km over the equator and receive TV signals. 3. A GPS receiver tells you where you are based on satellite signals. You can use its data to work backwards and find where the satellites are. Every day, you profit form data created by satellites.
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  11.  @stevea8355  All 3 of my claims are easily repeatable experiments. To prove me wrong, you have to demonstrate the flaws in these experiments, which I predict you are unable to do.
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  12.  @stevea8355  The Rayleigh criterion applies to being able to resolve objects. You can see objects that are far smaller if they reflect enough light. Satellites definitely reflect enough light at dusk and dawn, when the sun is below the horizon for an observer on Earth but the satellite is still in sunlight.
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  13. Tons of evidence prove you wrong.
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  14.  @brussels13207  Well, there's a connector that's unplugged, it's not like they'll pull the cable apart. Often there's a plate that holds a bunch of connectors, and it's pretty easy to winch that plate away from the rocket.
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  15. Those are the brake disks. They're in front of the electric motors that drive the tracks.
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  16. Earth is not flat. We have a dozen methods to measure Earth's shape, and they all agree: Earth is a sphere. Similarly, we have a ton of data that shows Earth is not the center of the solar system, or the universe. Flat Earth and geocentrism are dead. Their corpses just twitch occasionally as hopefuls poke at the remains of their idols.
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  17. SPMTs didn't exist in 1963. And NASA had valid reasons for wanting to stack the Saturn V indoors instead of on the launch pad, including: 1. ability to have multiple rockets in the process of being stacked and tested 2. better access for testing 3. hurricanes
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  18. Most Russian systems are based on trains, as shown for the N-1 in this video. Soyuz uses a much simpler transporter on a single set of tracks, but the idea is the same: horizontal transport, and put it upright at the pad.
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  19. This video shows the launch pad sitting in the VAB, on pillars. The crawler is about to drive underneath it to pick it up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdCs2wNGXJE
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