Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site ssc-vax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!adolph
From: adolph@ssc-vax.UUCP (Mark Adolph)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response - Automated Shuutle Landing
Message-ID: <282@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Dec-84 20:30:08 EST
Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.282
Posted: Tue Dec 18 20:30:08 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Dec-84 02:39:54 EST
References: <-2700@tektools.UUCP> <73300001@hpfclq.UUCP>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace Co., Seattle, WA
Lines: 21

*** YOUR MESSAGE ***

> I believe the answer is "yes".  I know that the on-board flight
> computers land the vehicle but I don't remember if they also inject
> the Shuttle into the re-entry path.  I also think that it wasn't
> until the sixth misssion that a pilot actually landed the craft
> manually.  Knowing NASA, it seems to me that they probably could land
> the Shuttle without human help for safety reasons if nothing else.

John Young landed STS-1 manually.  I believe the quotation from Robert
Crippen was that he "really greased it in."  If I recall, he (Young) 
commented on the fact that the orbiter had more lift near the ground than
they anticipated.  But it is true that the computers can land the shuttle.

					-- Mark A.
					...uw-beaver!ssc-vax!adolph

   "Computers are like preppies: they just boil around in their own way 
	and you have to do things their way or they blow you off."

	"Everything that was different was a different thing..."