BarryKirk:<br />1) Launch from a different location that has better weather.<br /><br />Me:<br />Here in the USA, the most ideal locations have been taken. KSC was chosen as were others, based on range safety and relative isolation from population centers. Since the launch sites existing today were chosen, population centers have grown around them. This is especially true at KSC which is surrounded by small towns. Access to orbits is another factor. Ideally a launch site should be as close to the equator as possible, especially for satellite launches to GEO.<br /><br />BarryKirk:<br />Use a smaller rocket, smaller (volume) that is to make it easier to build a protective building around the thing.<br /><br />Me:<br />The rocket size will depend on what its to be used for. The VAB was not built for shuttle so its already twice as large as it needed to be for the task of housing shuttle stacks. Had a VAB been built for shuttle, it might have prompted a different method of stacking. The advantage that shuttle planners had when the VAB was selected, high bay areas high enough to hoist the orbiter above the ET before lowering it for mating. I don't recall why they hoist the orbiter so high before lowering it parallel to the ET for mating. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>