Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!cbnews!nak
From: nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Shuttle Rolling and Throttle Back
Message-ID: <1226@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 19 Sep 88 14:54:11 GMT
References: <118@avatar.UUCP> <6400003@cpe>
Reply-To: nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Lines: 22

In article <6400003@cpe> tif@cpe.UUCP writes:
>

[some people explain well about the roll maneuver ]

>(I thought it sounded like a silly question till I realized I
>didn't know the answer :-)
>
>Is there some obvious-to-everyone-but-me reason that the whole launch
>pad couldn't be oriented 90 (or whatever) degrees differently so that
>the shuttle could be in the same flight position without the roll?

A visiting astronaught explained it this way:
"That roll move is to do in software what we can't do in hardware.  With
the early funding cuts in the 70's, NASA couldn't afford extensive mods to
pad 39B."  

The orientation or whatever was set for Saturn launches, not shuttle
launches, and they didn't have the $$$ to change it.

	Neil Kirby
	...cbsck!nak