Vandenberg Shuttle Facilities

[DaveS]

Working a bit more on my article (again, it's going to be relatively short, not a detailed history of this subject), I decided to look at Google Earth to see what shuttle facilities were built and still standing. I looked for the ET storage and processing facility and found it just a short distance south of SLC-6. It was designed to store four ETs and process a fifth.

I suspect that this building was never used, even for Delta IV. It's just too big, and at the southern part of the base there's not really any activities over there that would require it. What are they going to fill it with, lawnmowers and dump trucks?  Next time I am out there I'll have to ask my buddy if we can get over there and see it.

The External Tank Checkout Facility (ETCF) was used as the ETs for the first four Vandenberg missions had been delivered prior to the program's termination. The Facility Checkouts back in 1984/1985 saw Enterprise mated to ET assigned to the third mission. After the termination those ETs were used on later missions from KSC instead. Also, the first set of FWC SRMs had also been delivered but the pad trials used the same inert steel SRBs that had been used for the same purpose at KSC in '79, also with Enterprise.
Edit:
Attached a B&Wphoto of the STS-62A FWC SRBs stacked on the Launch Mount prior to program termination.

[Blackstar]

ET storage facility I believe. That is the building in replay #36.  SRB building were on the north side near the railroad tracks.

Yes, corrected. Serves me right for posting while drunk.

[Blackstar]

Some more examples of some of the stuff I acquired at my recent trip to VSFB. I'll be going back in a few weeks.

Top image is the ET facility. You can see the four storage bays and the high-bay at left.

[Blackstar]

My TSR article on this subject will probably appear next week. It's finished, but I decided to delay it a week because I don't want to swamp TSR with military space articles. Also, it takes forever to write captions for a bunch of images, and I have yet to do that. I'll post a few more of the images in coming days.

I'm primarily going to stick to the artwork, not construction photos. I do have a lot of great SLC-6 photos but they're not all mine. There is somebody who wants to do something about SLC-6 and I don't want to step on his toes. As I mentioned, I do have another article about SLC-6 that is in draft form and I may have to revisit it. That is more about the acquisition of the land. As soon as the base was established there were Air Force people looking at acquiring the land to the south that was owned by the Sudden family. Efforts to take it did not start until around 1963/64. The Air Force seized it using eminent domain, but they under-paid the Suddens who then sued the government and successfully received more money for the property. And then of course everything was shut down with MOL's cancellation. It must have been rather galling to the Suddens to have their land taken and then have the whole area put into mothballs by 1970.

[catdlr]

My TSR article on this subject will probably appear next week. It's finished, but I decided to delay it a week because I don't want to swamp TSR with military space articles. Also, it takes forever to write captions for a bunch of images, and I have yet to do that. I'll post a few more of the images in coming days.

I'm primarily going to stick to the artwork, not construction photos. I do have a lot of great SLC-6 photos but they're not all mine. There is somebody who wants to do something about SLC-6 and I don't want to step on his toes. As I mentioned, I do have another article about SLC-6 that is in draft form and I may have to revisit it. That is more about the acquisition of the land. As soon as the base was established there were Air Force people looking at acquiring the land to the south that was owned by the Sudden family. Efforts to take it did not start until around 1963/64. The Air Force seized it using eminent domain, but they under-paid the Suddens who then sued the government and successfully received more money for the property. And then of course everything was shut down with MOL's cancellation. It must have been rather galling to the Suddens to have their land taken and then have the whole area put into mothballs by 1970.

I eagerly wait for it.  But, pick a slow news day or launch day to publish it.  Tony

[Blackstar]

I eagerly wait for it.  But, pick a slow news day or launch day to publish it.  Tony

There are no slow news days anymore.

[Blackstar]

[catdlr]

I love the model; I can see myself inserting my "N" scale train set onto it.

All that complexity, much of it never used, and some of those flame ducts getting refiled with soil—it's so sad.

But Hey, it's time for Change.  Let's see what SpaceX will build.

[Blackstar]

I love the model; I can see myself inserting my "N" scale train set onto it.

All that complexity, much of it never used, and some of those flame ducts getting refiled with soil—it's so sad.

But Hey, it's time for Change.  Let's see what SpaceX will build.

The model lights up, with little blinking lights that show the path of the Delta IV to the pad. The construction of the model is impressive, and the lighting doesn't add much to it. There are plans to build a glass cover over it to protect it. They also have some other SLC-6 and SLC-4 tower models.

I walked down in one of those flame trenches in 2022.

[Blackstar]

https://thespacereview.com/article/4882/1

Vandenberg and the space shuttle (part 1)
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, October 28, 2024

In the early 1980s, excitement was rapidly building at Vandenberg Air Force Base and its surrounding areas on California’s Central Coast as the Air Force began construction of numerous new facilities to support the space shuttle. In addition to major reconstruction of the SLC-6 launch pad, work began on orbiter, booster, and payload processing buildings and other support infrastructure with the expectation that shuttles would regularly be roaring aloft from Vandenberg. But after the January 1986 Challenger accident, plans to launch shuttle from the West Coast were halted, then canceled completely. The decision was a major setback to the local economy and the base.

[catdlr]

https://thespacereview.com/article/4882/1

Vandenberg and the space shuttle (part 1)
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, October 28, 2024

I want to give this the time it deserves to be read in detail. I'm busy with caregiving, but I'll be free to read the article overnight. I'm so delighted you spent the time and effort visiting the base and researching historical records in writing this. I wish NASA events were different and the VSFB Shuttle launch facility was operational. But what happened, happened, and putting it into a written article will make this a lifetime treasure.

 Tony

[Blackstar]

I want to give this the time it deserves to be read in detail. I'm busy with caregiving, but I'll be free to read the article overnight. I'm so delighted you spent the time and effort visiting the base and researching historical records in writing this. I wish NASA events were different and the VSFB Shuttle

Just to clarify: my only real "research" was going to Vandenberg and coming across a file that included a few dozen glossy prints from the shuttle facilities construction proposals. They were in a file without any context, no documentation. I just scanned all of them. I did not dig through historical archives. In all my years of going out to Vandenberg, I've never had much success dealing with the base historian.

The rest of my research on shuttle at VAFB comes from some other documents that I already had, as well as verifying information from Dennis Jenkins' 3-volume shuttle set. (His chapter on shuttle at VAFB is probably the most extensive print source on this subject.) In short, I don't consider this to be extensive research on my part, unless you want to count driving up to VSFB from LAX to be part of the effort.

At some point in the future I'll write about why I've been going to Vandenberg and what I've been doing. There is something going on there, and there is a hint in one of the photos in this article. While there, I've found a few interesting things, like the Transit and the Thor photos that I published in previous Space Review articles.

[catdlr]

I want to give this the time it deserves to be read in detail. I'm busy with caregiving, but I'll be free to read the article overnight. I'm so delighted you spent the time and effort visiting the base and researching historical records in writing this. I wish NASA events were different and the VSFB Shuttle

Just to clarify: my only real "research" was going to Vandenberg and coming across a file that included a few dozen glossy prints from the shuttle facilities construction proposals. They were in a file without any context, no documentation. I just scanned all of them. I did not dig through historical archives. In all my years of going out to Vandenberg, I've never had much success dealing with the base historian.

The rest of my research on shuttle at VAFB comes from some other documents that I already had, as well as verifying information from Dennis Jenkins' 3-volume shuttle set. (His chapter on shuttle at VAFB is probably the most extensive print source on this subject.) In short, I don't consider this to be extensive research on my part, unless you want to count driving up to VSFB from LAX to be part of the effort.

At some point in the future I'll write about why I've been going to Vandenberg and what I've been doing. There is something going on there, and there is a hint in one of the photos in this article. While there, I've found a few interesting things, like the Transit and the Thor photos that I published in previous Space Review articles.

Understand, but anything and everything you give us is way better than we could ever obtain. 

[Blackstar]

Understand, but anything and everything you give us is way better than we could ever obtain. 

It's just a personal research integrity thing for me--there are other articles I've written that I consider to be much more original and unique research. My article on TENCAP, or my articles on SIGINT, for example, all have new information that nobody previously reported on. I broke new ground with those. I did not break new ground with this Vandenberg shuttle article(s).

That said (and please allow me to ramble), SLC-6 has long been an interest of mine. Back in the 1990s I used to trade emails with another writer where we would discuss what happened to SLC-6 and what was likely to happen to it. There were people in the Lompoc community who expected the shuttle to lead to a boom in tourism as people filled up the hotels prior to a shuttle launch, and they expected traffic jams on the roads as people jostled for a good spot to watch the shuttle rise up over the mountains.

Vandenberg was relatively sleepy up until last year. They had maybe a dozen or so launches a year for a long time. And then the Falcon 9 launches increased substantially, and now there is a whole community of people who watch the launches. It helps that the state opened up one of the beaches that allows people to watch launches from much closer now. It's not clear that this has affected the local economy at all. But there's more energy to the place.

[catdlr]

Blackstar,

I lived in LA, drove to Lompoc for dinner, and then went off to Surf Train station with my parents.  I remember viewing the Delta III launches (JPL mission) from the old Surf train station (when it was still used to drop off and retrieve mail bags with those spring-loaded Swing Arms that the onboard postal employee would grab as the train sped by.  I could see the Titan pad from a distance.  The launches at night were spectacular as the LV would ascend directly overhead (at least appeared that way).  For so many hours, we waited with others in cold, windy weather to watch a few precious moments of excitement. It's never old.  Lompoc was a sleep town; only the BBQ festival and the Burpee seed plantations made the entire valley a wall-to-wall rainbow of color.  I think the flower festival was more exciting than the launches for the people living there.  The 60s must have been busy on the base with all the spy launches. 

Since my wife took ill, I haven't ventured back many years, but I can at least enjoy them now on the internet and not have to endure the weather.

[Blackstar]

The "Vandenberg Rocket Launches" group on Facebook has some great photographs. Just don't read the comments.

[Blackstar]

I may have posted one or more of these up-thread, but the August 4, 1978 one is the most interesting one. Also not that important. It suggested that USAF did not need Vandenberg for shuttle launches because polar launches could be done from Florida.

I'm not sure how they reached that conclusion. But perhaps a bit more importantly, I'm not sure that the GAO was really authorized to make major recommendations about technical programs. Or probably should not have been.

I think I later saw a document or maybe a history that suggested that some USAF people stated that GAO was clearly not technically qualified to make those kinds of decisions and this made the GAO look bad. I think that's true. But this document was clearly an outlier and they did not keep arguing that point.

[LittleBird]

I may have posted one or more of these up-thread, but the August 4, 1978 one is the most interesting one. Also not that important. It suggested that USAF did not need Vandenberg for shuttle launches because polar launches could be done from Florida.

I'm not sure how they reached that conclusion. But perhaps a bit more importantly, I'm not sure that the GAO was really authorized to make major recommendations about technical programs. Or probably should not have been.

I think I later saw a document or maybe a history that suggested that some USAF people stated that GAO was clearly not technically qualified to make those kinds of decisions and this made the GAO look bad. I think that's true. But this document was clearly an outlier and they did not keep arguing that point.

It appears that there was doubt quite early on in some quarters about whether Vandenberg would really become a shuttle base - see my post about  an Agena tug briefing

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=11111.msg2588314#msg2588314

when the possibility of dogleg manoeuvre had been acknowledged.

[gtae07]

Just don't read the comments.

Probably sound advice for any website these days 

I used to work with a guy who did GSE development out there for the Shuttle program.   He had some pretty good stories from SLC-6 and later at KSC when he followed the program over there.  I wish I'd kept in touch; he was forcibly retired in one of our misguided panicked layoffs a few years ago.

[Blackstar]

Working a bit more on my article (again, it's going to be relatively short, not a detailed history of this subject), I decided to look at Google Earth to see what shuttle facilities were built and still standing. I looked for the ET storage and processing facility and found it just a short distance south of SLC-6. It was designed to store four ETs and process a fifth.

I suspect that this building was never used, even for Delta IV. It's just too big, and at the southern part of the base there's not really any activities over there that would require it. What are they going to fill it with, lawnmowers and dump trucks?  Next time I am out there I'll have to ask my buddy if we can get over there and see it.

This site is now leased out to Relativity Space to build a new pad there for their Terran-R rocket.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/3d-rocket-printer-relativity-signs-deal-with-iridium-and-plans-to-build-a-california-launchpad.html

Relativity just announced they’ve secured a launch site at Vandenberg on the southern tip of the base, and a launch contract with Iridium to fly 6 of their satellites. As well as a Chief Financial Officer with investment banking/fundraising background. Pretty big news! That is some solid, very solid, business progress. Methinks as long as the printing tech is actually working, they will definitely make it to orbit just a matter of time now... and they’ll probably have the capital to do it if they don’t already given this kind of business traction which is catnip for investors.

I know nothing about Relativity Space, but apparently they are in some financial trouble:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-01/relativity-space-is-said-to-face-cash-drain-exploring-options?sref=nPlhheXZ