Slick Six may be the most sophisticated military complex ever built
To the ancient Chumash Indians of California, Point Arguello was holy territory, a land where the fog that drifted in from the Pacific mixed with sacred spirits in the skies. The men and women who swarm over that windswept ground today are still concerned with the heavens, but for a different reason: they are turning part of that area northwest of Los Angeles into the space age's newest launching site, the second center of the U.S. shuttle program. The scheduled first flight: October 1985.
Under construction since 1979 and now nearly four-fifths complete, the Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex (SLC 6),* dubbed "Slick Six," is a prodigious arrangement of lofty mobile towers and gaping tunnels, rugged bunkers and squat tanks, covering 150 acres.
By March 1985, when Slick Six is expected to be finished, some 250,000 cu. yds. of concrete will have been placed. The estimated cost of construction: $570 million. That, however, represents just a fraction of the budget. Equipping the center with the latest computers and gadgetry will run another $2 billion. But size and expense are not what makes Slick Six unique. Says Air Force Colonel Walter Yager, commander of the Shuttle Activation Task Force: "There have been larger and more expensive projects, but I doubt if there have been any more complicated."
Vandenberg Air Force Base was chosen as a shuttle facility because it offers ideal conditions for launching spacecraft into polar orbit. Shuttles lifting off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida enter a more or less equatorial orbit and fly over only part of the earth's surface. Spacecraft sent from Vandenberg into polar orbit will slice across the earth's twirling path and pass over a slightly different strip of the globe on each swing. Satellites placed in polar orbit have the capability of photographing any section of the earth. This gives them an intelligence-gathering potential significantly greater than the Kennedy-launched space vehicles.
The Air Force, which will operate Slick Six, plans to fly up to ten missions annually. Another point in Vandenberg's favor: shuttles will be launched due south and will fly over Antarctica as well as vast stretches of water, regions where the craft's solid-fuel rocket boosters and external tank can be safely jettisoned.
Until 1969, Vandenberg was the planned launch site for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). Congress canceled the construction of the launch pad when it was months away from completion. After the shuttle launch complex was approved and funded, the Air Force figured that it could save $100 million to $300 million by converting the MOL site rather than building from scratch. In fact, the most imposing structure at Slick Six, the 285-ft.-high Mobile Service Tower, is a refitted and slightly shortened version of a MOL facility. The Air Force also cannibalized the steel used in that structure, constructing an access tower for astronauts entering the shuttle.