only five people who went to Space Camp ® became astronauts

would have been better if they did try to land in White Plains NY

I think you fail Space Camp and they don't let you be an astronaut if you do that.

https://gizmodo.com/5244564/confessions-of-a-space-camp-alum

We'd made it through the whole mission and were about to re-enter when our window of opportunity somehow closed, and we needed to pick a new landing site. The multiple choice options included White Plains and White Sands. White Plains. White Sands. They sound similar, right? I mean, I grew up in Indiana, so they were equally distant from my geographic frame of reference, and I was the product of the American education system, so I probably didn't even have a geographic frame of reference. I suggested that we go to White Plains. Stressed it, over the weak protests of my teammates. I was damn sure. I reasoned with them over the intercom: It was a plain, and if we were in trouble, hell, we'd at least be able to put this sucker down on flat land.

I was wrong. White Plains, being a densely populated NYC suburb, is not a good place to land the Space Shuttle. Not only that, it's in the wrong direction, if you miss your window over Florida. White Sands, New Mexico, all you Yeager fans surely know, is a fine place to crash land just about anything.