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Commercial Use of Shuttle Landing Facilities Planned
VeganBob writes "There may be future non-NASA uses of the Shuttle Landing Facilities. At 15,000 feet long and 300 feet wide, the landing strip is larger than those at most commercial airports. From the article: 'NASA today issued a formal request for expressions of interest by non-NASA organizations, including commercial space companies, for use of the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla. The announcement is the first step in considering how and when NASA can expand access to available capacity at the SLF by government, commercial, and academic organizations.' SPACE.com also covers this announcement."
Nearby, you'll find the Vehicle Assembly Building, which IIRC is the largest enclosed space in the world. Compare this
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http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.584023,-80.6529
to the obligatory Pyramids of Giza at the same zoom level
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.975252,31.13328
That is an enormous runway. Back in the day, I flew into Fargo ND's hector field as one of the way points on my solo cross-country. As I landed the C152, the thought that I could probably land on the runway sideways did cross my mind.
The runway at 9000x150 was rumored to be a 747 training ground for the airlines. With a longer and wider runway, I can see it getting use for folks learning how to fly the big jets.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
It's not the length or width of the runway that sets it apart--quite a few airports have runways rivaling (or exceeding) those dimensions. It's the construction quality and flatness. Runway diagrams will usually list the runway elevation for either end separately, because it will ofen differ by up to a few hundred feet. One of my most interesting experiences as a student pilot was landing on the rolling hills of a local airport runway.
I expect this to be the first step in a long-awaited "privatization" of the space program which is actually a code word for "dismantling", as the pieces of our space program are taken apart and sold off to various commercial interests which, while they definitely do something useful with them, don't once you think about it have anything whatsoever to do with space. (What, you thought the shuttle landing strip was going to be leased to private space ventures? Nah. There's only a couple of those right now, they aren't necessarily in the right places, and they're still just big planes at the moment. By the time the private space ventures get to the point they can seriously lease stuff from NASA, there won't be a NASA left to lease from.)
Now, I know you haven't seen this trick before, folks. Now, watch this hand in which I am holding up a new shiny Manned Mission to Mars Plan. I will implore you to look at this Manned Mission to Mars and see that there is nothing unusual about it, it has not been tampered with. By focusing your attention on the Manned Mission to Mars-- which actually is perfectly normal, with nothing wrong with it-- you won't notice what I'm doing with my other hand, which is one by one palming all the other aspects of our space program and shoveling them into the trash. Misdirection, folks. Maybe it's intentional, maybe it's unintentional. But either way the trick ends the same way: the hand you weren't watching sets a stage, and when the Mission to Mars plan finally appears to change hands that hand you weren't watching will suddenly open up and reveal itself empty, reveal there was never anything there to begin with, the Mission to Mars plan you were concentrating on so hard never had any substance, only empty promises, just illusion. And now, mysteriously, all those other parts of what used to be the space program are just gone.
If you look in closer, you can see the dashed lines that they are supposed to land on. For a long time shuttle pilots had a large pool of money going to see who could land perfectly on the lines. The pot finally went to a female captain a couple years ago.
Also, if I remember correctly, the landstrip was constructed to run perfect with the horizon. There's also a flight tower with an FAA flight traffic controller there everyday, even when it isn't in use. What a sweet gig!
i believe that the shuttle runway is specialized for the shuttle itself. meaning the surface is matched to the tires of the shuttle and graded more aggressively then normal airport runways. meaning, in short, it will shred tires of normal airliners, if not on landing, then on repeated use. the shuttle's tires are replaced every flight, not so with commercial airliners.
why make it this way? they were concerned with keeping the runway functional regardless of weather, so that the shuttle crew could come down at any time, in any weather. thus the texture of the runway was made rough, so that the tires could grip in wind, rain, snow, whatever. you can just divert passenger aircraft to another airport, or ground them from taking off in bad weather.
A few weeks ago I tried submitting the following story to slashdot, but it kept on getting rejected (same with these stories). As seems to be becoming tradition, I thought it would be relevant to the current topic, so I've pasted the text here. And no, it's not Karma-whoring if my Karma's already been maxed out for years. :)
At a recent talk, Michael Griffin outlined NASA's plans for helping to generate a robust and competitive commercial market in orbital spaceflight. The speech and Q&A transcripts from the talk are available. In a move reminiscent of the US government kickstarting the early airline industry by purchasing airmail services, NASA plans on supplementing government-derived transport by purchasing cargo delivery services to the International Space Station from commercial providers, followed by crew transportation after the systems have proven themselves. Unlike traditional government contracts, sellers wouldn't see a profit before the services are delivered and the emphasis will be on actual performance instead of process and specifications. Aviation Week has some commentary on the announcement.
I also think I remember seeing something before about NASA selling one of the launch complexes at Kennedy Space Center to SpaceX, but can't find more info. Does anybody have a link to more on that?