A few months ago I workshopped an early draft of Against Gravity, and was warned by a member of the Glasgow SF Writer's Circle who knows of such things that it was unlikely some form of shuttle launch could take place using a converted oil platform (obviously my shuttle would be rather more advanced and probably a lot smaller than the current variety, being part of a story set over a century from now), even one where the launch crew were situated on a nearby ship.
In fact, it probably could; I watched a documentary on Discovery the other night about a group called SeaLaunch who launch satellites from a converted oil platform which can be floated into position pretty much anywhere in the world, the whole operation controlled at launch-time from a nearby ship. Okay, it's unmanned rockets rather than manned shuttles of some futuristic variety, but I was pleased to see my idea had already panned out in reality.
Sea Launch
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