The State - News from Sept. 8, 1985

The Lompoc Valley home of Vandenberg Air Force Base may face gridlock next year if too many sightseers clog its two-lane roads on their way to see the space shuttle take off, officials said. It would only take 50,000 cars and campers converging on the valley to bring traffic to a virtual standstill, J. T. Voss, head of the California Highway Patrol’s coastal division, estimated. The first scheduled launch from Vandenberg is March 20, 1986. Previous shuttle launches have been at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Voss said the CHP plans to launch a media campaign, principally in populous Los Angeles County, 45 days before the takeoff to warn would-be shuttle watchers “what the situation is like with two-lane roads. We’ll have to be honest with them.”