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To: GOPcapitalist
Now that's funny, cause it seems to me that, exempting your little enclave on the left coast, all the major space flight installations are located in Dixie - the launch site is in Florida, mission control is in Texas, and rocket propulsion testing is in Mississippi.

Just a little bit of space lore for you: the launch site is in Florida for geographical reasons, not for any intrinsic southern virtues.

First of all, it's the farthest-south spot in the CONUS (the farther south you go, the Earth's rotation contributes more velocity to the satellite, which increases throw weight for the rocket).

Second, Cape launches go over the ocean, which reduces the danger of debris damage on eastward launches. (Vandenberg AFB is used for high-inclination missions for the same reason: because the launch trajectory goes over water.)

Third, the Cape location allows water transportation of large parts such as Saturn V rocket sections.

As for Johnson and Stennis space centers, the names of the centers tell you exactly why they are where they are. LBJ pulled a lot of strings (and his wife coincidentally bought a lot of land in the area) to ensure that the Manned Spaceflight Center ended up in Houston. It could have been put just about anywhere, and probably should have been at Goddard.

You forgot Marshall SFC at Huntsville, BTW. MSFC is where it is because the Army originally had control of the missile program. They put Von Braun's folks at Redstone Arsenal because they'd decided that missiles were "artillery". And where better to put an artillery range than on a bunch of Alabama swamp land?

369 posted on 07/29/2002 9:17:25 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: r9etb
Just a little bit of space lore for you: the launch site is in Florida for geographical reasons, not for any intrinsic southern virtues.

Right where Jules Verne said it would be 100 years earlier. Geography was the only reason for choosing the Florida coast, for the same reason the French launch from Guyana --- even closer to the equator. A politically positive side of the Space Program is that it did fill central Florida up with Republican "Damnyankee" engineers (including a number of my relatives) who helped to break the 100-year lock the Rats had on Florida politics.

373 posted on 07/29/2002 10:15:12 AM PDT by Ditto
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To: r9etb
Just a little bit of space lore for you: the launch site is in Florida for geographical reasons, not for any intrinsic southern virtues.

Never said they were. If you had been following this exchange you would note that my comments were posted in response to an arrogant and erronious implication by another individual that southerners were out of touch with technology and specifically space travel. Considering the southern location of the space program's major institutions, that is simply not true. Got it?

386 posted on 07/29/2002 2:04:38 PM PDT by GOPcapitalist
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