The idea is that the booster will land at its launch site and I think that they would prefer any potential aborts to be over the water.
An empty booster may have a good enough drag/lift ratio and altitude to get much of the way back by doing a slight turn and 'gliding' with a little help from the engines.
I have not heard about a west coast launch pad, but I was wondering how they planned to actually accomplish the landing. We (almost) always launch west-to-east, to take advantage of the roughly 400m/s you gain from the Earth's rotation. It wouldn't make sense to launch from the east coast and then have the boost fly back to get to land.
Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California. The first Falcon 9 v1.1 launch, for CASSIOPE, was from Vandenberg.
Here is a sign that SpaceX has at Vandenberg, implying that they intend to both launch from and land at Vandenberg: http://i.imgur.com/YW4tmkR.jpg
Vandenberg is really only useful for polar orbits, and perhaps retrograde orbits, due to it's high inclination and it's geographical relationship to the ocean.
Huh, somehow I always though the first stage would orbit the earth once and then land. I never considered that it doesn't have enought speed or fuel to do so even if forced.
If the 1st stage could make orbit, it would constitute an SSTO craft. You have to have higher ISP than kerosene and higher fuel mass fraction than aluminum can provide to do that.
Not strictly true. The Saturn V first stage could have been used as an SSTO, and it used kerosene and aluminum. The payload would be extremely small, though, so it's not worth it.
Are you familiar with Apollo 13's pogo oscillation? Money quote:
"The engine shutdown was determined to be caused by severe pogo oscillations measured at a strength of 68 g and a frequency of 16 hertz, flexing the thrust frame by 3 inches (76 mm)."
It was this close to ripping the whole rocket apart, but it managed to withstand some incredible shaking until the engine shut down.
Are you familiar with Apollo 13's pogo oscillation?
One of my friends in Houston was dealing with pogo in rockets specifically. So yes, I am familiar with pogo in general, and I had heard of it during the Apollo program.
Neat. Apollo 13's is one of my favorite little-known facts, so I thought I would mention it. They came so close to being famous for a completely different (and equally, perhaps more, catastrophic) reason.
There are many launches from Vandenberg AFB, but most of these launches will travel south over the Pacific. It is generally used for placing payloads in Polar orbits. They never launch over land for fear or casualties if something goes wrong.
> They never launch over land for fear or casualties if something goes wrong.
Yes, that's true now, but at the height of the Shuttle program, Vandenberg AFB had begun to build, and planned to use, a Shuttle launch facility. So that's a policy change, because there was a time when they were more than willing to launch something very heavy over land to their east.
That's all Vandenberg is ever used for aside from missile tests which go west[1], and there would be no reason to use it for launches to the east when you can accomplish those just as easily from Florida without the safety concerns.
[1] http://www.spacearchive.info/vafbview.htm "With the exception of the Pegasus XL, all Vandenberg AFB launches take place from the base. Minuteman III missiles climb rather steeply and head due west. Delta, Taurus, and other satellite launch vehicles fly towards the south and climb more slowly."
It would absolutely make sense to launch from the east coast and have the booster fly back to land. You still gain all the benefit of the extra speed from the Earth's rotation to help you get to orbit. The fact that you fly the first stage back home doesn't affect that at all.
