Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Vandenburg never to used?
Message-ID: <1988Oct8.233458.11751@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <41680@pyramid.pyramid.com> <22000004@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 88 23:34:58 GMT

In article <22000004@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>No, the risks were with the possibility of the polar ground track
>presenting a risk to populated areas, even from Vandenberg (Can't
>*anyone* spell Vandenberg?)

Say what?  Care to elaborate?  Downrange from Vandenberg there is
*nothing* but lots and lots and lots of empty ocean, so empty that the
choice of emergency landing sites is extremely limited.  (There is
basically *one* on each of the two interesting launch azimuths, each
a tiny speck of an island.)  The closest significant land mass downrange
is Antarctica.

Polar launches from Vandenberg are routine; it is *the* US polar-orbit
launch site.

Are you thinking, perhaps, of OMB's asinine idea of launching the shuttle
northward into polar orbit from KSC?
-- 
The meek can have the Earth;    |    Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu