[Moonman62]

It’s been awhile since I read about that, so I did some searching. It seems the long cross range glide capability was due to the military requirement to have a single orbit abort return to California after a launch at Vandenberg.

Apparently, in addition to that, there were military plans to do single orbit missions to snag satellites from polar orbits, both ours and theirs. Of course, there never was a Shuttle launch from Vandenberg, but the Shuttle was stuck with the large wings.

[Purdue77]

In 1982 someone in the shuttle office at VAFB started a shuttle launch pool. The shuttle was scheduled to launch in Mar 83. The calendar went something like this:

Jan 83

Feb 83

Mar 83

Mar 83

Mar 83

Mar 83

...

As you correctly said, the shuttle never launched from VAFB. After another four years or so and a billion dollars, they finally threw in the towel.

As an aside, one of the problems with launching at Vandenberg was the fog and all of the water in the atmosphere. Ice collecting on the external tank was even then considered a problem. In trying to find a solution, a condom company offered to make and supply condoms that broke away from the tank upon launch thus collecting the ice before it could impinge on the orbiter.