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From: irwin@iago.caltech.edu (Horowitz, Irwin Kenneth)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Shuttle Landing Strip
Message-ID: <1991May23.163946.24203@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 23 May 91 16:39:18 GMT
References: <3218.282A166A@ofa123.fidonet.org> <32726@usc> <1991May10.135453.509@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> <287@hsvaic.boeing.com>
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In article <287@hsvaic.boeing.com>, eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) writes...
>In article <1991May10.135453.509@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> mboone@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Michael B Boone) writes:
>>
>>I believe that it is because Kennedy often has strong crosswinds on the
>>landing strip, where Edwards doesn't.  I think that the commission that
>>reviewed the Challenger accident also recommended that Edwards be used to
>>cut down on any risk or landing difficulty.
>>
> 
>Has anyone on the NET ever wondered why the Space Shuttle landing strip
>was built NOT pointing into the prevailing winds? Or if the winds
>are variable, why didn't they build more than one runway to cover
>different wind directions, like some airports do?
> 
>Or why they didn't extend the already existing runway called the 
>'Skid Strip', on the Air Force side of the launch siter, which was
>already 10000 ft long ( the Shuttle runway is 15000 ft long).  The
>skid strip points in almost the same direction as the Shuttle landing
>strip.
I would imagine that the local topography around KSC has something to do 
with this.  The prevailing winds are mainly E/W (off the ocean) and the
narrow strip of land is not long enough in this direction to build a
shuttle landing strip.  As for the landing strip at Cape Canaveral AFS,
I don't have any idea about this.
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Irwin Horowitz                        |"Suppose they went nowhere?"-McCoy
Astronomy Department                  |"Then this will be your big chance
California Institute of Technology    | to get away from it all!"-Kirk
irwin@romeo.caltech.edu               |       from STII:TWOK
ih@deimos.caltech.edu                 |
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