My apologies for bringing this thread up again, but...
Is there any truth to the statement that "A) F1 clusters were regularly tested and launched from Vandenberg, and B) Site security is such that it's almost impossible to view clearly enough to positively identify any specific launch vehicle."
I saw this claim and I simply cannot imagine how anyone could believe that Saturns were launched from Vandenberg. I thought that the facilities there for large-scale launches weren't built until the Shuttle program, and that the base was never considered for Apollo launches, primarily for trajectory reasons.
No. Even the Shuttle launch facility was abandoned before ever becoming operational.
Besides which statements A and B are mutually exclusive.
Okay,
you say so. That's good enough for me, on this particular forum, but what facts can be presented to disprove it?
I saw once where some guy calculated the impact points of the first and second stages of all the Saturn V launches, and if they'd come from Vandenberg all the first stages would have impacted somewhere in Arizona, and all the second stages would have impacted somewhere in North Carolina. Except, I don't have any idea how to do that kind of math. I'm a history professor.
I wouldn't even know where to start.
Also, I have read some news articles where people from as far away as Columbia, SC and Savannah, GA both saw contrails from Apollo 17s night launch, around 12:40am or so, and a Time article saying that it was visible from the North Carolina coast.
So given this, and how densely populated the area around Vandenberg is, (Santa Barbara County alone was 277,000 in 1972) Would it just not be possible that a launch of a vehicle that size would not be seen? How do you prove something like that?