Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Edwards as primary site
Message-ID: <1991May13.164356.3367@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Mon, 13 May 1991 16:43:56 GMT
References: <72189@microsoft.UUCP> <1991May12.182355.13384@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> <32809@usc>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <32809@usc> sharp@mizar.usc.edu (Malcolm Sharp) writes:
>If Edwards then is the best landing site, why not use Vandenberg
>is the space port?   Is it because of the obvious things:  no
>port there, infrastructure in place at KSC,  no $$ savings,
>launches would take place over land mass??

The last is the big one.  Maximum-payload launches have to go due east
or very nearly so to exploit the Earth's spin, and Vandenberg can't launch
east because there are populated areas nearby in that direction.

There are also some practical and political problems with Vandenberg.
It's a USAF rather than NASA facility.  Due to the presence of Indian
burial grounds, doing serious construction there is a major exercise in
paperwork.  The Saturn infrastructure at KSC looked like a good base for
shuttle facility construction.  Etc.  But the big problem was simply that
it's in the wrong place.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry