Akronnick

They're called bridle catchers. Early carrier jet aircraft like the A-4 and the F-4 used an arrangement of cables called a bridle to attach to the catapult shuttle. The bridles would land on the ramps and were recovered and reused. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_catapult#Bridle_catchers

Equatorial launch sites have greater rotational velocity than high latitudes, so there still is some advantage to an equatorial launch site. Also you can launch directly into a 0° inclination orbit without doing a plane change burn.

That's true, but that means the same face of the Mun faces Kerbin, not the Sun. As the Mun orbits Kerbin, it rotates in sync, so that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, just a lot slower. As Pink Floyd said, there is no dark side of the Moon Mun, really.

That would also explain why they develop the solid rocket booster before the wheel.

Needs more struts.