QUESTION:
If an orbiter had to make an emergency landing at an overseas ELS, how
would you get it home?

ANSWER from Jenny Lyons on June 17, 1997:
Good question - It wouldn't be easy!

For each launch we have people stationed overseas at our pre-selected
Transatlantic Abort (TAL) sites.  They would assist the astronaut crew and
power down the Orbiter immediately following landing.  We also have a team
of people assigned, for each mission, to a "Rapid Response Team."

This is the team of folks who would fly to any overseas Emergency Landing
Site (ELS), including a TAL site, if we had to make such a landing.  They
are on stand-by to travel within hours of an actual emergency landing.

In addition to deploying people, we would need to ship a substantial amount
of equipment.  Special apparatus would be required to remove at least one
Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), and possibly open the payload bay doors
and remove the payload.  Giant cranes would be assembled to lift the Orbiter
on top of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA).  The Orbiter would be
significantly heavier than it would normally be at landing, since it would
still contain nearly all of it's onboard fuels and consumables, as well as
the payload (if we had planned to deploy one).  We would need to reduce the
Orbiter's weight by thousands of pounds in order for the SCA to manage an
overseas Ferry Flight back to KSC.  We predict it would be at least one
month after an emergency landing before we would be ready to begin the trip
to bring the Orbiter home.  Let's hope we never have the opportunity to
demonstrate this.