adolph@ssc-vax.UUCP (Mark Adolph) (12/19/84)
*** YOUR MESSAGE *** > I believe the answer is "yes". I know that the on-board flight > computers land the vehicle but I don't remember if they also inject > the Shuttle into the re-entry path. I also think that it wasn't > until the sixth misssion that a pilot actually landed the craft > manually. Knowing NASA, it seems to me that they probably could land > the Shuttle without human help for safety reasons if nothing else. John Young landed STS-1 manually. I believe the quotation from Robert Crippen was that he "really greased it in." If I recall, he (Young) commented on the fact that the orbiter had more lift near the ground than they anticipated. But it is true that the computers can land the shuttle. -- Mark A. ...uw-beaver!ssc-vax!adolph "Computers are like preppies: they just boil around in their own way and you have to do things their way or they blow you off." "Everything that was different was a different thing..."