[oasis-members] A question: How could this have been prevented?

[Gale, Anita E]

There is a better way to prevent weather damage on space vehicles, even
with current infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center:  keep the vehicles
in the VAB longer.  The way to do that is to simplify payload
installation and checkout, and reduce the complexity of pre-flight
activities at the pad.  If we could wait until two or three days before
launch to roll out to the pad, the vehicles would spend less time
outdoors, and we wouldn't roll out at all if severe weather were
predicted.

Now, it's really simple to say that we'll just delay roll-out, but this
would require some expensive and challenging upgrades to the way
business is currently done at launch sites.  Although concepts have been
developed for containerizing payloads and automating checkout, the
people who hold the purse strings have decided by default to spend money
elsewhere instead of implementing those designs.  Until the priority is
adjusted to emphasize efficient operations at the sacrifice of
Shuttle-on-the-pad photo ops, we can expect to continue seeing vehicle
damage and flight delays in the future.

Anita Gale
Space Shuttle Cargo Integration      

-----Original Message-----
From: DRh9811850 at aol.com [mailto:DRh9811850 at aol.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 12:45 AM
To: oasis-members at oasis-nss.org
Subject: Re: [oasis-members] A question: How could this have been
prevented?

In a message dated 3/6/07 7:31:06 PM Pacific Standard Time,
rivercoon at netzero.com writes:

> That would be a good way to test turbo pumps.  Trying to keep a below 
> sea level pit that size dry in Florida!
> 

No, not Florida, California. We'd like the business here.

But maybe in New Mexico, they've got a lot of empty terrain...no
hurricanes, and just the occasionally pesky bahada-chubasco. Come to
think of it, those have massive hail sometimes, as an added
feature...found that out firsthand around Socorro a long time ago, in a
tiny little Fiat. :-/

Well, where *would* be the least problematical place for a launch area? 
Keeping in mind that a lot of the launch vehicles in the private sector
aren't going to be mammoth shuttles...

Diane


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