W. Coast Shuttle Launch in 1980s Termed Doubtful

The first West Coast launch of a space shuttle may not take place until the 1990s, a delay that reflects the problems that have beset the nation’s space program in the aftermath of the destruction of the Challenger and the death of its seven crew members, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.

Before the Challenger explosion, the first Vandenberg launch had been scheduled for July. Then the entire space shuttle schedule was thrown into disarray, and the Vandenberg launch was put off until the spring of 1988.

But now the Air Force is considering delaying a Vandenberg launch until 1990 or as late as 1995, according to the official, who requested anonymity.

“If we delayed until the 1990s, we wouldn’t pull the plug, turn out the lights and send everyone home who is working on the shuttle,” the official said. “But we’d cut the work force and put the facility into reduced status until a few years before the next scheduled launch.”

A lengthy delay would be a setback to the Air Force’s plan to put military payloads into polar orbits via the shuttle. Polar-orbiting shuttles, which have to be launched from the West Coast, would permit detailed examination of remote sections of China and the Soviet Union.

And a delay could cause economic hardship for some merchants in Lompoc, which is adjacent to Vandenberg in northern Santa Barbara County, who were counting on a tourist boom associated with shuttle launches. Developers in Lompoc have increased the number of hotel and motel rooms almost fivefold since 1980.

The space shuttle facility was built at a cost of $2.8 billion, and about 3,500 Air Force personnel and civilians are working on the project. If the launch is delayed into the 1990s, the work force could be cut by approximately half, the Pentagon spokesman said.

Maj. Ron Rand, an Air Force spokesman, said there still is a possibility that a West Coast launch could take place in 1988. But because shuttle flights at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida have been delayed--until the summer of 1987--the Air Force might be forced to revise Vandenberg’s schedule, he said.

One plan involves delaying a Vandenberg launch until after a fourth shuttle orbiter is built in 1990 or 1991, the Pentagon spokesman said. There are only three orbiters, and it may be more efficient to use them for launches from Kennedy, he said.

“By putting all the orbiters on the East Coast you can get two or more flights a year in and that could reduce some backlog,” the spokesman said. “It takes longer to prepare for a mission at Vandenberg” due to the complicated military projects, he said.

‘Caretaker Status’

The most extreme plan would be to put the Vandenberg site into “caretaker status” until about 1995, when a West Coast launch site is needed for research on the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” program and the planned construction of a manned space station, he said.

The delays at Vandenberg come during a troubled period for the American space program. Government and industry experts have said it will take about five years to build a new orbiter, step up production of expendable launch vehicles and work through a rapidly growing backlog of satellites and scientific payloads that had been scheduled to be put into orbit by the now-grounded shuttle fleet.

A backlog equivalent to 24 fully loaded shuttle missions will accumulate by 1990, even if the remaining three orbiters go back into operation on schedule, a NASA administrator has said.

Vandenberg had problems last month when a Titan 34-D rocket exploded above a launch pad and sent a toxic cloud drifting along the coast. The cloud blew out to sea, and there were no serious injuries.

MX Missile Test

Wednesday, in the first test launch at the base since the explosion, an MX missile carrying 10 unarmed warheads was sent on a 4,000-mile flight to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific, an Air Force spokesman said. The flight was completed successfully, the spokesman said.

The missile launch from an underground silo was the first time that the MX was tested carrying all 10 dummy warheads. It was the 12th test of the intercontinental ballistic missile, all of them successful, in a series of 20 planned through 1987, the spokesman said.

After the Titan explosion, the Air Force was criticized by local officials for failing to promptly inform fire and law enforcement agencies about the details of the incident. Two changes were then implemented by the Air Force: a hot line between the base and the county’s office of emergency service was installed and a representative of Santa Barbara County was scheduled to view all future launches from the command post.