Twang

The retired space shuttle Discovery flew in to Dulles Airport on April 17. I didn’t drive down to see it, but watched it arrive on television. A number of years ago, when the Explorer (the shuttle that never went into space, but was used for glide/re-entry tests) was donated to the Smithsonian, it too flew into Dulles aboard a 747. At the time, I was traveling to the west coast just about every week and Claire, Kelly and David usually dropped me off at the airport. On that particular day, Claire pulled over and they all watched the arrival of Explorer – I saw it from the window of my TWA flight waiting to take off. That’s once I didn’t mind sitting and waiting for our turn to depart.

Discovery served the space program well – and had a lot of “firsts and onlys” to its credit during its period of service. The event brought back a lot of memories for me. I was lucky enough to be involved with the shuttle program periodically from its start. I spent a lot of time with some of the shuttle crews and even more time with a few that were chosen to fly in space but never got the chance.

Before the Challenger disaster, there was a big push to build a space shuttle launch pad at Vandenberg AFB in California. It was named SLC-6 (Space Launch Complex 6.) I was involved in that project, off and on, for the better part of a year. The space shuttle was intended to be the primary, and some believed, the only vehicle to be used to get into space and launch satellites. There is a good reason (physics/orbital geometry) that some satellites need to be launched from the west coast and not the east cost launch site (Cape Canaveral.) That’s the reason it was going to be necessary to be able to launch the shuttle from the west coast – if it was to be the nation’s only “ride into space.” The Challenger disaster of course, changed that view and no shuttle ever launched from California.

During that time is  when I learned of the “Twang Effect” (I’m not making this up – that’s the technical name.) I won’t go into details right now – maybe that’s a subject for another blog – but it’s the reason that, had the shuttle ever launched from Vandenberg, it could have carried a heavier payload than if launched from the east coast.

Flying, in one form or another has always fascinated me and even though I’m no longer actively involved even remotely in the space initiative, I’m still a big fan and follow the events closely. Someone once said something that I really liked – the meek shall inherit the Earth – and the rest of us will go to the stars.
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