DaveS - 19/12/2005 3:31 AMAccording to my information the Air Force had actually installed two vertically mounted jet engines to provide hot air to alliviate the problem with excessive ice build-up on the ET. And as far as the facilities go: VAFB had the following shuttle facilities:
DaveS - 20/12/2005 4:47 PMThe only orbiter that ever visited Vandenberg was Enterprise in 1984-1985 for facilities checking. Columbia was to have gone out to Vandenberg before Discovery to do an Flight Readiness Firing to verify that SLC 6 was really ready for Discovery.
psloss - 20/12/2005 6:31 PMEdit: another nit -- Discovery never visited SLC-6 but it did make a short stop at the north Vandenberg shuttle landing facility on top of the 747 SCA from Edwards AFB when it was delivered to NASA in October, 1983. If I recall correctly, they did a fit test/check on the mate/demate device there (which eventually ended up in Palmdale).