Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttle Payload Questions
Message-ID: <1989Feb10.193642.12684@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <26162@cci632.UUCP> <1989Feb9.022607.2075@utzoo.uucp> <1989Feb10.145924.6208@utzoo.uucp>
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 19:36:42 GMT

In article <1989Feb10.145924.6208@utzoo.uucp> kcarroll@utzoo.uucp (Kieran A. Carroll) writes:
>>...there was no plan to dedicate specific orbiters to specific launch sites
>>that I know of....
>
>... For its part, the Air
>Force was to develop an inertial upper stage and fund the
>construction of orbiters 105, 106 and 107.

You'll notice that that idea died very early, since 106 and 107 were dropped
from shuttle planning before things got very far.

>"These `blue' shuttles would have been `dedicated' to
>classified military missions launched (in some cases) into
>polar orbits from the re-designed space launch complex six
>at Vandenberg Air Force Base...
>
>"...(after DoD shuttle funding started to wane) a brief attempt
>to dedicate OV-103 `Discovery' to the DoD failed..."

While I dislike questioning things in Spaceflight, it should be noted that
mistakes do get made from time to time.  As far as I know -- I could be
wrong -- there has never been a definite, approved *plan* to dedicate
specific orbiters as "blue shuttles".  There has been lots of *talk* about
it, but I don't think there has ever been an actual decision to do it.
Note the word "plan", as opposed to "proposal", in my original posting.

For that matter, note that the blue shuttles would have operated from KSC
at times, so my original comment about dedication of orbiters to launch
sites stands for another reason too!
-- 
The Earth is our mother;       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
our nine months are up.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu