->>  DW> Incidentally, Columbia's orbit was not accessible from
->>  DW> Baikonur. The Russians couldn't have sent a rocket to it.

->> Are you just saying anything that comes off the top of your head?!
->> The Russians can send a rocket to anywhere they damn well please!

 DW> In principle, yes. In practice, the rockets that the Russians
 DW> use to transport crews and equipment to the ISS are designed
 DW> to reach an orbit that passes over the latitude of the
 DW> cosmodrome at Baikonur, which is something like 50 degrees
 DW> north.

51.6 degrees

 DW> For this reason, the ISS was deliberately put into an orbit that
 DW> is inclined to the equator by about this amount. But Columbia's
 DW> orbit, on this mission, was much less inclined.

not much less... 39 degrees... that's only 12 degrees difference... i could
see both, ISS and STS, when they passed over my location...

 DW> To reach it, a rocket from Baikonur would have had to burn a
 DW> lot of extra fuel. The Russian supply rockets don't have
 DW> enough.

possibly... however, they would have had no more problems than STS going to
HST for work or even into the orbit they did take...

)\/(ark