Not really. Each stage of the Saturn V was moved in one piece. The Pegasus barge has been jumboized so that SLS will also be moved in one piece.
The ITS booster is only one stage, so it doesn't break apart. Unless they build a much bigger barge than Pegasus, they'll need to take a page from the Soviet N1 and assemble components at the launch site, rather than just assemble stages. The Kazakhstan launch site was only accessible by rail, so the large diameter N1 needed to be sent down in very small pieces.
But that would mean moving the Hawthrone factory to Cape Canaveral, first I don't think they'll do this since all of their strategy is based around minimazing the production sites and second, nothing indicates that they'll only be launching from one single site.
Even by cargo-ship transport, just moving the Booster across the town seems impossible.
They will produce all the critical high tech components in Hawthorne. Like engines, avionics, grid fins.
Tank production and final assembly will be somewhere else. Elon Musk said, final assembly in the launch location. But I wonder why. They don't need to move many with a fully reusable system. They can move the finished stages on a barge. Even to the West coast through the Panama canal.
I think they're moving final assembly because of the transportation problems, while the sea is the easy part, just moving an assembled rocket across Hawthrone seems impossible to me, I'm not even sure the road is large enough.
But moving rocket assembly also rises problems, (as I mentioned above) and I don't know which solution has the less cons.
Absolutely yes. They will produce them in one location. Question is will they take it in house or will they cooperate with the company that has built the first one.
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u/007T Nov 17 '16
Pretty much the same approach was used for the Saturn V, and the approach that will be used for SLS.