Land the Shuttle in Tulsa

[ignerntbend]

Seriously. Nasa's #1 mission is now to reach out to muslims and make them feel better about themselves. I am not joking, I couldn't make something like that up.

But you just did...

Guys, the shuttle is an archaic platform. Our last accident was caused by a piece of foam. A piece of FOAM wrecked the shuttle.
The decision to retire this 1970's technology was made before most people had even heard of Obama.

 

[n423]

Got my vote!!

 

[vvvvvvv]

Without going too far into it, I was referring to the approach path of the runway and not the runway itself.

If you're shooting an IFR approach and the ceiling is 200 feet having a ~190 foot shuttle + the top of whatever building housing it right next to the end of the runway tends to be a problem. One of the crosswind runways was shut down because of cell phone towers a couple years ago.

Space shuttle, awesome yeah. You want it in Tulsa at that location? Grab a shovel.

Umm... the orbiter is only 60ft tall...

 

[dak]

Umm... the orbiter is only 60ft tall...

And they were talking about placing it upright as it would be during launch with external tanks. Even if it was parked wheels down it would still need an 80 foot building probably, still likely an obstruction.

 

[Grendel]

Granted I'm not a pilot, but looking at the runway and TASM arrangement in Google Maps, and the museum is a good 500 feet east of the runway, not at the approach end of it.

Still, even if they had to dig a 100 foot deep hole, wouldn't it all be worth it just to have the one of the Shuttles here?

 

[dieseltech09]

Guys, the shuttle is an archaic platform. Our last accident was caused by a piece of foam. A piece of FOAM wrecked the shuttle.
The decision to retire this 1970's technology was made before most people had even heard of Obama.

You are right about the shuttles being retired, but he did scrap the Constellation program to build the Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets which were going to be the shuttles replacements.

 

[vvvvvvv]

And they were talking about placing it upright as it would be during launch with external tanks. Even if it was parked wheels down it would still need an 80 foot building probably, still likely an obstruction.

Ah... I figured it'd just be the orbiter. My bad