Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Easter Island
Message-ID: <1990Jul19.153241.27704@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <manning.648341238@arrester>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 15:32:41 GMT

In article <manning.648341238@arrester> manning@arrester.caltech.edu (Evan Marshall Manning) writes:
>I was watching a Nova last night about Easter Island.  They
>mentioned that Easter Island is an emergency landing strip
>for west-coast shuttle landings.
>
>Do they fly out people for each landing?  Stockpile emergency
>gear?

What they probably meant to say is that Easter Island is an emergency
landing site for west-coast shuttle *launches*.  Of course, there haven't
been any such launches, and it's most unlikely now that there will ever be.
However, NASA did make some improvements to Easter Island's airport, and
set up some other facilities, before that became clear.  I imagine that
if Vandenberg shuttle launches were being done, they'd have equipment
cached there permanently and emergency crews flown out for each flight.
You definitely want people and equipment on hand, if only because the
OMS/RMS fuel and oxidizer -- still aboard when the shuttle lands -- are
very dangerous chemicals.  (There's also some liquid hydrogen and liquid
oxygen, but they're innocuous by comparison.)

About a decade ago, Harry Stine (writing as Lee Correy) produced a novel,
"Shuttle Down", which graphically described how ludicrously unprepared
NASA was for an Easter Island landing.  Some of the preparations were
made partly as a result of the embarrassment it caused.
-- 
NFS:  all the nice semantics of MSDOS, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
and its performance and security too.  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry
