Oh boy California, are you in for a treat!
Like the locals were able to in northern Virginia and New York, you will get a chance to see a space shuttle up close and personal. But unlike in Virginia and New York, those in Los Angeles will have an added bonus of a twelve-mile, two-mile-per-hour Endeavour transit from Los Angeles International Airport to its final resting place at the California Science Center near the University of Southern California campus.
Are you in California but not in the Los Angeles area? That's okay, on Friday morning the Endeavour will take off from Edwards Air Force Base at 7:15am and take a four-hour low-flying tour of California, from Sacramento to San Francisco to the L.A. Basin. Part of the flight will include paying homage to several of the businesses and organizations that have supported the manned spaceflight program over the years, such as the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Griffith Observatory and the town of Mojave, home of more than one aerospace company. In addition, photo-opportunities will be available as the orbiter flies over Disneyland, the Getty Center and Universal Studios.
Earlier this week the Endeavour took a cross country flight mounted atop a modified Boeing 747 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida to Edwards Air Force Base via Ellington Field (near Johnson Space Center) in Houston. The entire cross country route has been dotted with locations for low-level (i.e., 1500 foot) flyovers paying homage to as many businesses and government facilities that supported the shuttle program as possible. On Wednesday she tipped her wings over Stennis Space Center on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, as well as Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans.
Stay tuned to local media outlets (such as the Los Angeles Times' Endeavour coverage page) for the most up-to-date information on Endeavour's Friday morning route. Even as I was writing this post, new attractions were being added for flyovers. The Queen Mary in Long Beach was just added to the route on Wednesday afternoon.
The Space Shuttle Endeavour was commissioned in 1986 following the Challenger accident. She made her debut in 1992 and performed 25 missions, logging 123 million miles in space. I had the privilege of seeing her launch in November 2002 when I was stationed at Patrick Air Force Base, adjacent to Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center. I was with friends standing on the coast, with a newborn baby in my arms. It was a spectacular night launch that I will never forget. It was also the last successful flight before the ill-fated Columbia mission in January 2003.
Please take care of Endeavour for us, California Science Center. You won out over several communities to take care of her, such as Johnson Space Center in Houston, the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, and the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Tell her story well!
