On your left you see the space shuttle Endeavour, shortly after its touchdown at LAX earlier this week.
Endeavour flew 25 times between 1992 and 2011. In daylight photos you can see how battered it is. Honourable wounds gained doing honourable work.
Today, it is on its last journey as it continues inching its way through the streets of Los Angeles towards its final home, the California Science Center in Exposition Park.
It is being carried verrrry slowly – top speed of 2 miles an hour, to be exact – on a massive hauler, along city streets carefully prepared for its passing.
Trees were cut down (but will be replaced at a ratio of 2:1) to make room for its wingspan – 78 feet, or 7 traffic lanes. Electric poles were temporarily laid down on the ground, and in some places electricity was cut while Endeavour passed.
The shuttle weighs 170,000 pounds, but the hauler can handle 800,000 pounds, so, not to worry about that part.
And all along the route, people stood and smiled and gawped and cheered and clapped and mopped up their damp eyes.
During a recent trip to New Mexico I visited their Museum of Space History, in Alamogordo, not far from the White Sands National Monument (which you can visit) and adjacent White Sands Missile Range (which you CANNOT visit, top secret, as in, top top top secret). The Trinity Site, where the first atom bomb was exploded in 1945, is towards the north end of the white gypsum-sand site, but can only be visited twice a year as part of an official procession. The missile range is also a testing ground for NASA.
The museum is small but well-designed, with lots of pieces of space vehicles and assorted test devices to see. And a Hall of Fame for scientists and astronauts. Deeply pleasing to see these people being celebrated, who are so often far, far behind the scenes.
A highlight of the museum visit was about a half hour video of the astronauts goofing around in the shuttle, bouncing off walls, gulping free-floating candies from the air, and demonstrating their sleeping arrangements. Apparently when you are asleep in space, and weightless, your arms drift upwards and stay there. Cool to see, and a wee tad creepy.
The Los Angeles Times has been giving the story front-page coverage for a couple of days now. They have interesting graphics about loading the shuttle onto the 747, and on getting it off the aircraft and onto the hauler. (LA Times’ pictures are often a bit slow to load, but in this case very much worth waiting for.)
LA Times also has an interesting look at the Belgian-made Sarens transporter that is carrying Endeavour through the streets.
BBC also has some nice coverage.
Collectspace.com has information on delivery of other shuttles to their permanent homes
And it would be just rude not to include NASAand JPL.
P.S.. If you’re wondering why Endeavour is spelling in the British manner, with a ‘u’, that’s because it’s named for HMS Endeavour, Captain James Cook’s ship from 1768 to 1771. The name was also used for the command module of Apollo 15.
Top photo by Bluesnote, via Wikipedia.
Three nighttime photos by RedSoxFan274, via Wikipedia. They were taken between 10pm and 11pm on Friday night, 12 October 2012, on Manchester Ave. Randy’s Donuts, and its sign, are an old LA icon, so for locals the juxtaposition is a big deal.
