Talk:Vandenberg Space Force Base

Page contents not supported in other languages.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The United States Space Force's 30th Space Wing serves as the host wing for the base

Surely the base hosts the wing, not vice versa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.97.114.91 (talk) 18:37, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly the case. A wing is usually designated at the “host wing” meaning they run the base. Garuda28 (talk) 18:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, do you mean "designated AS the “host wing”"?

Visitor centers

Are there visitor centers and rocket exhibitions? Are there tours for visitors?

"Vandenberg is also used for the launch of non-militaric satellites in polar orbits"

i have very serious doubts as to whether 'militaric' is a real word (apologies if it's a typo)

i think 'military' suits ok - changing article to reflect this

ahpook 13:50, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Shuttle

"Over $100,000 were spent on the new space shuttle modifications." um, that figure sounds insanely low, but I'm not changing it since I don't have the actual figures. Jafafa Hots 12:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Runway Extension etc.?

I was stationed at Vandenberg in the 70's and worked on the flightline there. Wasn't the runway at Vandenberg lengthened to accomodate expected landings of the Space Shuttle in the late 70's? If so, this should be included in the article. Also some mention of the program in which Minuteman Missiles were test-launched from C-5A aircraft in a program that came out of Vandenberg during the same time. Spyneyes 03:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Abort options for a shuttle going to polar orbit?

At Other launch sites...? on Space.com's forums, I was wondering what abort options where available for a orbiter attempting to reach polar orbit from Vandenberg by launching south. Will (Talk - contribs) 07:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tom Clancy novel...

I think Vandenberg was the launch site for an ASAT operation in one of the earlier Clancy novels. RobertTaylor21 22:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Slick 6 (shuttle) catastrophic design flaw

My stepfather worked at VFB for a number of years in the mid 1980s. He told me that the air force and nasa utterly failed in the construction of slick 6 - this is the explanation he gave me:

Slick 6 at VAFB is a closed vented pad. The back (bottom when standing as an upright package) of the shuttle sits nearly at ground level. The pad sits on the top of a high bluff just a few hundred yards from the coast. In order to prevent the exhaust from damaging the facilities and launch vehicle, vent tunnels were created that would vent the exhaust out to the side of the bluff to the ocean. This differs greatly from the space shuttle launch facilities at Kennedy Space Center, where the launch vehicles sit high off the gound at the pad and use a simple deflector to divert the blast off to the sides of the facility.

Now the problem: In at least one case (sorry, but I don't remember and cant find the mission number) the shuttles main engines had started but the launch was aborted before launch at something like T-0:02 (ie: no SRB ignition) and resulting in MECO while on the pad. During the engine shutdown sequence, the fuel/oxidizer mixture becomes unstable and results in a near explosive force as mixture leans out (anyone who has ever gas welded can discuss or demonstrate the "pop" when one shuts off the fuel before the oxygen). It was determined by NASA that if such a shutdown occurred at slick 6, the vents would not be sufficient to counter the overpressure created by such a shutdown and such a shutdown would likely destroy the vehicle, launch assembly, and kill the crew. This is not a problem at KSC since the pads are open vented and such these high overpressures simply disperse. I was told that this is why the shuttle never flew from VAFB as the cost of refitting the pad and all the support structures was just not worth the effort and expense for the air force (since this slick was really for military payloads for the airforce and not for nasa). Also note that such closed vented launch facilities are common at VAFB, however such a setup is simply not ideal for manned spaceflight since the cost of failure costs more than just money in such a case.

If these facts check out, it would be an interesting information to be wikified and integrated into the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.31.184.166 (talk) 15:29, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Space Shuttle Polar Orbit

As a quick response to using the space shuttle to achieve a polar orbit - The reason the US places its primary launch facilities in Florida was due to its proximity to the equator and it allows launches to the east without crossing land until you hit Africa. This is important because the launch vehicles carry very finite amounts of fuel (energy) and can barely attain orbit under ideal circumstances. Launching the east means that the earth's rotation is contributed to the energy budget since just sitting at the pad the vehicle is in essence already traveling with around 1000 mph of delta-V for orbit. If you wanted to launch to the west, you have to basically attain around 1000 mph (ie: in atmosphere) just to hit 0 velocity for orbit. Also being near the equator means that you do not need to expend as much fuel to sychronize your orbital plan with either the equator or to align with other solar targets (ie: moon, mars, etc.). This plane is what creates "launch windows" that allow the spacecraft to launch into an orbit essentially already aligned to solar targets (rember the earth has a 6 degree inclination in the orbital plane). This is why when you see the big map in mission control, most trajectories appears as a sinewave undulating back and forth over the equator.

Anyway, back to polar orbit. Polar orbit requires more energy than eastern launch orbit due to the first part I mentioned which is the contribution of the earths own motion and rotation to the launch. Without this contribution, I am sure the shuttle could make orbit (polar) since it has more excess energy than any orbital insertion vehicle ever built (Apollo does not count as its intent was to leave orbit) however there would certainly be a severe payload penalty and/or it would impact the ability to achieve higher orbits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.31.184.166 (talk) 15:55, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Due to its geographic location, VAFB is only suitable for polar and retrograde orbits. The shuttle was designed to reach polar orbit from VAFB and land back at VAFB – that's why it has those huge wings... ComputerGeezer 03:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
VAFBs location does not preclude prograde orbits for any reason other than safety. The reason you launch prograde from Florida and retrograde from California is simply a matter of the space vehicles not overflying populated areas during the boost phase of the flight that is the most likely flight regime to experience failures. This precaution lessons the possibility of a crash into populated terrain. Ideally you want your launch vehicle to acheive orbit before it will pass close to any populated area so that if the vehicle was to malfunction or be destroyed by flight safety due to loss of control that its debris would not pose a serios risk to the population below. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.31.184.166 (talk) 14:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"the earth has a 6 degree inclination in the orbital plane" - does it??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.97.114.91 (talk) 06:04, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps referring to the Earth's orbit inclination to Sun's equator which is close to the weighted average of all planetary orbits in the solar system (invariable plane). Rairden (talk) 06:15, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article rating

Currently this article is rated by three wikiprojects. WikiProject Space rates it Start-Class, the Aviation WikiProject rates it B-Class and the Military history WikiProject rates it B-Class. I considered up-rating it to B-Class for WikiProject Space, but decided not to do so because of the relative lack of references and citiations. (Of course anyone else may make this change if they wish, but for convenience, here's a checklist of areas often considered for a B-Class rating: Referencing and citation, Coverage and accuracy, Structure, Grammar, Supporting materials.) (sdsds - talk) 03:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vandenberg in popular culture

  • In the
    US military
    soldiers.
  • In the movie,
    Terminator 3, Vandenberg was mentioned as one of the bases that were annexed by Skynet
    .
  • Vandenberg appears in first season
    Meg Austin
    foil the plot.
  • In the 1995 film Outbreak, The Vandenberg Airbase is the place where the bomber take off to the infected town to deploy the bomb.
  • In the science fiction novel
    Isla de Pascua), Chile
    .
Project to move all Trivia to Talk. LanceBarber (talk) 19:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shorter names in Spaceport template

Politics

What is the purpose of including this section? I nominate it for removal. LorenzoB (talk) 17:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

UFO shoots down missile over Vandenberg Air Force Base

Why is there no information on the subject here about this incident where a UFO shot down a missile on video camera that we can now see on youtube? Is it due to lack of interest or censorship? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.224.200.34 (talk) 23:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe because it only happened in some crackpots imagination...? Ckruschke (talk) 19:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke[reply]
Hi, Ckruschke. Two problems with your careless and likely uninformed comment. First, Prof. Robert Jacobs ain't no crackpot. He was an Air Force lieutenant who went on to teach at Bradley Univ. He's a clear-headed, clear-speaking observer who in 1964 handled filming of missle launches. Second, it happened on a film shown by his commanding officer a day or two after the launch and not in Jacobs' imagination. The reason nothing is in here about this is that it contradicts the prevailing Wikipedia editors' belief about what the world is like, no more, no less.Moabalan (talk) 05:09, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Featured picture

Delta II and NPP at dusk

featured picture at the commons, though i can see we probablly dont need more images here.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 18:40, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting spaceport until citations are added

Citations are a minimum to maintain such a section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.128.147.80 (talk) 06:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Honda Canyon Fire

Add Honda Canyon Fire to history. The fire burned more than 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) and killed 4 people including the base commander, and two fire chiefs, see Vandenberg Air Force Base p 66-68

Page Cleanup

This page is VERY large and I think is in desperate need of some clean up and breaking into subpages. For example, the entire section on

Ballistic missile testing I think should be turned into a 2-3 paragraph section on this page with a link to a main article perhaps called Ballistic missile testing at Vandenberg Air Force Base. This particular topic is a bit outside of the scope of what I normally work on but I would like to spearhead the cleanup. Are there any other editors who are watching this page that might be interested in helping or at least voicing an opinion? --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:50, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply
]

@Ckruschke, Beatgr, Nasa-verve, Carlossuarez46, and Mercurywoodrose: I see your names a bunch in the edit log... Any thoughts? --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:52, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I missed your previous request - I'm not on too often so thanks for the shout-out. Actually my opinion is it's not the missile testing section that is dragging the page down, it's the long list of Launch Facilities. IMO removing these would remove about 40% of the page's space. It would also be - very - easy to pull this out and create a daughter page of only this content with a sentence or two header added in. In fact, it would take me about 5 min. What do you think? Ckruschke (talk) 15:41, 29 September 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke[reply]
I support the need for improvements. I agree the list of Launch Facilities is too long. It doesn't need to be one big table. All the sites in the inactive section don't need to be labeled as inactive. Active launch sites, Inactive launch sites, Active ICBM testing sites and Inactive ICBM testing sites should all be level 2 headings with each site a level 3 heading followed by paragraph. The section names should be changed too because the ICBM testing sites are ICBM test launch sites and the launch sites are orbital launch sites. This should be done whether or not the content is moved to a new page. Mattise135 (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. I could create the page and then we could edit from there. Ckruschke (talk) 18:48, 29 September 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke[reply]
Created page
List of Vandenberg Air Force Base Launch Facilities and pasted all the material from the "Facilities" section into it. I left the Heritage Center info on the parent page as the new daughter page already includes info on SLC-10. Feel free to edit/change/manipulate as you guys see fit. Ckruschke (talk) 19:35, 29 September 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke[reply
]
@
Template:Vandenberg Air Force Base) should include links to all the subpages. --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:21, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply
]
I added the "see also" for the page I created. I don't think you use a "redirect" - that's for similar named pages that have no content.
I think someone else can fix the dead refs since I did everything else. Ckruschke (talk) 19:26, 4 October 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke[reply]

I think another good move would be to clean up the history section. IMHO, this page could do with a MUCH shorter history section and then a subpage that is History of Vandenberg Air Force Base. --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:38, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Ckruschke: "Everything else"? You copied and pasted text to a new page... Bravo... And it was your edits that broke the regerences in the first place. They worked before you cut and pasted the text. --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:33, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok - I see how it is. Enjoy... Ckruschke (talk) 14:43, 6 October 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 8 external links on

Vandenberg Air Force Base. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ
for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018.

regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check
}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 10:00, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on

Vandenberg Air Force Base. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ
for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018.

regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check
}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:41, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on

Vandenberg Air Force Base. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ
for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018.

regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check
}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:08, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 12 May 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. Clear and overwhelming consensus to move. (non-admin closure) Garuda28 (talk) 23:10, 18 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]



Vandenberg Air Force Base → Vandenberg Space Force Base
– On 2021-05-14, Vandenberg Air Force Base is scheduled to be renamed to Vandenberg Space Force Base. We should update the title of the article accordingly when that happens.

[KSBY source] osunpokeh (talk) 15:44, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: to fix this malformed request (the current title was a redirect, and redirects cannot be current titles in move requests) this premature page move has been reverted. This page should not be renamed at least until this request is closed and the community consensus at
ed. put'r there 21:18, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
Of course, but not before then. AP News Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 16:46, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support
talk) 17:07, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
Support Rainclaw7 (talk) 22:11, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support Llacb47 (talk) 00:00, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tysseract (talk) 06:08, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Moved osunpokeh (talk) 07:26, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, User:Paine Ellsworth, why did you revert my move? osunpokeh (talk) 23:58, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
User:Paine Ellsworth, please correct your mistake, as I have no way of doing so (error message). The subject has already been renamed on May 14. Your reverting of my move was in error. osunpokeh (talk) 00:02, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The page move was reverted for reasons I noted above. Besides the policy I referenced,
ed. put'r there 00:08, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
And any source to state that Vandenberg Air Force Base is the current name, rather than Vandenberg Space Force Base? [1] [2] [3] [4] osunpokeh (talk) 01:54, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I don't think the names of active bases of the United States Military qualify for that argument. It's said "Space Force Base" on the front gate for three days now. Metropod (talk) 14:02, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Vandenburg Space Force Base is the official name now. It must be moved. StarshipSLS (Talk), (My Contributions) 14:17, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether an admin will move the page until this move discussion is officially closed. Liz Read! Talk! 21:58, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
CSD for "Vandenberg Space Force Base" to make way for the page move. Fingers crossed that it goes through soon. osunpokeh (talk) 22:45, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply
]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Updating References from Air Force Base to Space Force Base

Just a quick note when editing this page that care should be taken to update current references to "Space Force Base" while maintaining historical references as "Air Force Base". The name was changed on Friday, May 14th, 2021. Any event that happened on the base prior to this date should not be renamed as having occurred at Vandenberg Space Force Base because Vandenberg Space Force Base did not exist at that time. For example, the main picture on the right depicting the launch of a Delta IV Heavy at Vandenberg Air Force Base on 28 August 2013 was incorrectly updated to say Vandenberg Space Force Base. This obviously would not match up with the references, and it would complicate historical searches for that event.  DGrundler  talk  15:09, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a perennial issue here on Wikipedia. All part of what happens on an encyclopedia that anyone can edit! (They do!) Just do your best to correct it, and don't be too surprised when it gets changed again! BilCat (talk) 20:31, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I completely understand that. Just hoping to educate more folks with a gentle reminder.  DGrundler  talk  21:49, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]