🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1989Dec21.050541.293@ultra.com> shj@ultra.com (Steve Jay) writes:

>> Just exactly how feasable would that be, putting the Shuttle on a Boat
>> to send across the ocean.

>Compared to putting it on the back of a 747, you think a boat sounds
>infeasible!!??  I suspect the first person to suggest that a 747 could
>carry a shuttle on its back got some mighty strange looks.  A boat sounds
>eminently reasonable. 

Putting the Shuttle on a boat is a dam-fool idea.  By the time you get
this big piece of deck cargo where you want it, it will be corroded
into worthlessness.

One of the Emergency Landing Sites is Hickam AFB, Hawaii.  If the
Shuttle lands there, the best course is to safe it, put it on a _big_
plinth, and use it as a gate guard.

Hawaii to anywhere is beyond the 747/Shuttle range.

I was the flying qualities engineer on the 747 refueling study, to see
if mid-air refueling was feasible for this very reason.  This study
was discontinued after structural problems with the extra vertical
stabilizers were discovered.  Now we just hope that we don't have to
use Hickam.  Easter Island is not high on the list either.
--

Mary Shafer  shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov or ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
         NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
                   Of course I don't speak for NASA