Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttle Rolling and Throttle Back
Message-ID: <1988Sep18.221312.25810@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <118@avatar.UUCP> <6400003@cpe>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 88 22:13:12 GMT

In article <6400003@cpe> tif@cpe.UUCP writes:
>Is there some obvious-to-everyone-but-me reason that the whole launch
>pad couldn't be oriented 90 (or whatever) degrees differently so that
>the shuttle could be in the same flight position without the roll?

Had the pad been built for the shuttle, the matter probably would have
been attended to.  The pad, however, was built for the US's best launch
vehicle, the Saturn V.  At the time it was designed and constructed, the
pad was meant to be used for Saturns well into the 1980s.  The notion
that Saturn launch capability would be abandoned within a decade would
have been considered ridiculous.  Even less credibility would have been
given to the suggestion that the pads be designed to accommodate an
inferior follow-on system.  (There *was* some effort made to allow for
*better* followons.)
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu