/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12705444
The pulling forces on the cables can be like an order of magnitude larger that the weight of the booster depending on their sag angle (similar to centrifugal forces on helicopter blades) and they will propagate on to squeeze the booster like a noose so it will have to be reinforced for quite a bit to withstand those, pads or not. By adding stoppers on the cables you can make them stop from tightening all the way on the booster, rather forming a square-shaped hole for the booster to loosely fit in and just hang on the gridfins without any of the cable forces transferred to it. This still doesn't address the issue of towers handling the 1000+ ton forces from cables pulling them inwards at the top.