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T O P I C R E V I E WDave HughesJust looking for history from the members on why LC-37A was never used for Saturn launch activities. Was there some type of technical reason why Pad B was used exclusively at Pad 37?tfrielinI think the short answer is the rather rapid scale-down of the Apollo Applications Program that envisioned lots of Saturn 1B missions to a series of Skylabs. Once it became apparent that Skylab was all AAP would amount to, NASA studied moving Saturn IB launch operations to the VAB and LC-39 to consolidate all launch operations — the remaining Saturn V launches and the Saturn 1B traffic for Skylab and ASTP. Thus, one MLP was modified for Saturn IB use (the Milkstool) and LC-37 was decommissioned. See the NASA Histories Moonport and Living and Working in Space for more on this issue. Also my article "The Future of Manned Spaceflight: The View From 1966" in Spaceflight magazine back in 2007 for a look at the Saturn traffic NASA envisioned before the budget cuts curtailed it all.
Once it became apparent that Skylab was all AAP would amount to, NASA studied moving Saturn IB launch operations to the VAB and LC-39 to consolidate all launch operations — the remaining Saturn V launches and the Saturn 1B traffic for Skylab and ASTP.
Thus, one MLP was modified for Saturn IB use (the Milkstool) and LC-37 was decommissioned.
See the NASA Histories Moonport and Living and Working in Space for more on this issue. Also my article "The Future of Manned Spaceflight: The View From 1966" in Spaceflight magazine back in 2007 for a look at the Saturn traffic NASA envisioned before the budget cuts curtailed it all.
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