Talk:Roll program

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Very good synopsis and detailed precisely. Good references, please give more. Cheers --88.103.1.179 (talk) 23:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Why wait until after take-off?
Q. Why wasn't the shuttle simply put onto the pad in the right direction, so that no roll would be required? -- A. Because the in-flight roll is relatively trivial compared to the rotation of the huge launch pad. Plus, the desired orientation is dependent on time of launch. If there is a launch delay, the in-flight roll can be easily adjusted, whereas the need to re-orient the launch pad would basically scrub the launch.

Is the pad built in such a way that the shuttle has to be oriented in the same way for each launch?--Avl (talk) 11:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Answering my own question: Putting the Shuttle in any other orientation on the pad would require the crawler to rotate, which would either stress the ground track severly if done in place, or take a lot of time if the crawler was sent on a big loop to accomplish the turn. Also, the rolling in flight isn't a problem.Avl (talk) 18:00, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Other rockets?
Doesn't just about everything use this? See Mercury-Atlas 3 and Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, for example. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 07:03, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Isn't the section about the space shuttle just shit?
For example, how does orienting the space shuttle in the correct direction to meet its target orbit achieve these things listed in the article?: 115.64.159.41 (talk) 08:56, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Increasing the mass that can be carried into orbit
 * Increasing the orbital altitude