Towers at Vandenberg intended for the Shuttles taken down for SpaceX

I'm gonna go out a limb to say a lot of you will be aware of this aspect of space history but the space shuttles were expected to fly out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, and a launch complex (Space Launch Complex or SLC, pronounced "Slick") SLC-6 was built for California shuttle launches that never actually happened. Over the years, SLC-6 was used for various launch vehicles: the Titan IV in the early 1990s, Lockheed Martin’s LMLV-1 in 1995, followed by Athena I and Athena II rockets with payloads for NASA and Space Imaging (later GlobalEye) in 1997 and 1999, respectively. The final launch from SLC-6 was of a Delta IV Heavy on September 24, 2022. 

In 2023, SpaceX signed a lease to use SLC-6 for its Falcon launches but has never used it, instead launching its Falcons regularly form SLC-4, which it started doing ten years earlier, in 2013. Fast forward to today.

A series of demolition charges on Tuesday (June 16) brought down the access tower, mobile service tower, and what remained of the assembly building at SLC-6—pronounced “slick-six”—in Southern California. Once the location for the US Air Force’s first effort to put humans into space and later, the West Coast launch site for the space shuttle, SLC-6 will next be used by SpaceX in support of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions. 

Flash back to February 1985. NASA’s prototype space shuttle orbiter Enterprise, stacked with an external tank and two solid rocket boosters, stands at Space Launch Complex-6 (SLC-6), flanked by the assembly building (left) and mobile service tower at back when it was called Vandenberg Air Force Base (today it's a Space Force Base). Credit: U.S. Air Force/Tech. Sgt. James Pearson

One year after this photo, on January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its flight killing the entire crew of seven. That led the DOD to rethink relying on the shuttle. The Air Force walked away from SLC-6 and never launched a shuttle.

Towers originally built to support early Air Force spaceflight efforts and later never-realized West Coast launches of the space shuttle were toppled at Vandenberg Space Force Base's Space Launch Complex-6 (SLC-6) in California on June 16, 2026. Credit: Space Launch Delta 30/Staff Sgt. Daekwon Stith

“Space Launch Complex-6 represents six decades of American innovation and our unwavering commitment to securing space superiority,” Col. James T. Horne III, commander of Space Launch Delta 30 at Vandenberg, said in a statement. “By modernizing this historic footprint in partnership with our defense industrial base, we are building directly upon the foundation of our pioneers.”

The demolition was known to be planned but was only announced hours after it was completed at 11 am PDT (1800 GMT) on Tuesday. The detonations brought down the access tower first, followed by the mobile service tower and then the large American flag-adorned assembly building. Typical of Vandenberg weather, a marine layer of low clouds and fog added a somber look to the scene.

According to an environmental impact statement they filed, SpaceX seems to expect it will take another 18 months to complete modifications to SLC-6, including the construction of two landing pads for the reusable Falcon 9 first stage boosters. They talk about launching Falcon Heavy missions from SLC-6, which would require the two landing pads, but I see no mention of Starships launching from the left coast in the source article.