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NASA Space

Endeavour Arrives At California Science Center 57

The final mission of the Endeavour has been completed. The shuttle has arrived at its final home, the California Science Center. From the article: "After a dramatic three-day parade through city streets, Endeavour arrived at its new home at the California Science Center shortly after 1 p.m. Sunday amid cheers from thousands gathered to witness a piece of history. 'Mission 26 — Mission Accomplished,' Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a news conference at Exposition Park, the shuttle rising behind him as a backdrop. The mayor was referencing the shuttle’s 25 space missions and its journey across the city. The 85-ton orbiter pulled up next to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and ground to a halt so that the mayor and others could officially mark its arrival at the park near the USC campus. 'Today everyone in the city of Los Angeles is an astronaut,' said L.A. Fire Department Chief Brian Cummings at the news conference."
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Endeavour Arrives At California Science Center

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  • Yuo feil inglesh forevar!

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Don't you know that space radiation mutates grammar?

  • by toygeek ( 473120 ) on Sunday October 14, 2012 @05:37PM (#41652477) Journal

    'Today everyone in the city of Los Angeles is an astronaut,' said L.A. Fire Department Chief Brian Cumming

    I hope for the sake of the astronauts that the reverse isn't true.

    • everyone in LA is an Asstronaut. Just watch the show TMZ.
    • by sycodon ( 149926 )

      The LA Astronauts stole three hub caps an but a few bullet holes in the Shuttle. Although it was thought that the bullet holes were merely collateral damage from the normal gang shootings. Gangsters really can't shoot very well. I mean, come on! What moron holds a gun sideways?

  • It should've had a ticker tape parade.

    Instead it gets a 3-day long crawl through LA neighborhoods past people eating at Quiznos and workers taking a break at the Firestone tire shop as people take pictures and wave flags. This could've been bigger. It should've been bigger. NASA, do you even have a PR department?

    • by jaxxa ( 1580613 )

      NASA, do you even have a PR department?

      Not with the Budget.

    • Like so many things here, many people will say "Only a handful of nerds care about stuff like that". The space program used to be a point of national pride and global hope for the future.

    • The two largest parades in the country, the Rose Parade and the Macy's parade both take place on streets that are 60 feet wide, which isn't nearly wide enough for the shuttle. The only route that would have been wide enough for both the shuttle and a lot of spectators would have been a freeway, which would have incurred significant risk getting the shuttle onto the freeway.

      Even without the ticker tape treatment, a million people still viewed it along the route.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14, 2012 @06:16PM (#41652769)

    Yes lets all celebrate our national decline as represented here by our voluntary loss of manned space flight capability! Your parents saw us put men on the moon... not just once but repeatedly. Now we can't even get our ass off the planet without help from the Russians. Damn that calls for a parade!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cfryback ( 870729 )

      My thoughts exactly. I get that the shuttles were aging technology. But NASA did describe them as "pickup trucks", well I've seen some beat up pickup trucks on farms that still keep going.

      I saw the Challenger disaster live, but without risk there is no gain. Several lessons were learned from that.

      It is a sad end to an era, and people seem to be cheering it on.

      Now it is the Russians and for-profit industry that will make those science/adventure movies reality.

    • by dodobh ( 65811 )

      It's not a parade, it's a funeral procession.

  • ... if you promise to hire some editors who were awake in school. "The shuttle has arrived at its final home...", not "it's."

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 14, 2012 @06:54PM (#41652993)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Is it just me or are people *way* more interested in the shuttle now than when it was still flying?
    • It's just you. This is just the funeral celebration. The shuttle endeavor is now interred at its california mausoleum, a bit of ceremony is to be expected.

      Frankly, the shuttles weren't that exciting as a space vehicle. At first, they were an interesting experiment, but the experiment showed that they were more costly than imagined and then they set us back by decades by taking funding and manpower that could have been spent on research into things that could actually work.

  • by DaveAtFraud ( 460127 ) on Sunday October 14, 2012 @09:41PM (#41653943) Homepage Journal

    Take a vehicle capable of escape velocity and put it on the streets of L.A.: maxim speed is now two miles per hour (with lots of stops while waiting for traffic to clear).

    Cheers,
    Dave

  • My visit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday October 15, 2012 @01:40AM (#41655045) Journal

    I visited the Shuttle just after midnight just before it entered Martin Luther King Blvd. I hoped that by being there late at night I could avoid the crowds and poor parking. (Unfortunately, it also avoided restrooms.) They had engine problems twice that delayed it for at least 3 more hours.

    They used a zig-zag pattern to avoid trees and poles. They pre-removed or trimmed trees and poles in kind of an alternating pattern from the left and right side. They probably made a choice over whether the left or right side of a given section of road would be easier to clear, and veered away from the non-cleared side. In some places there were inches to spare.

    One street-light that was unbolted and laid down was curiously still on. Somebody bumped a safety cone up against the light, and I moved it away to avoid burning it.

    It was odd seeing a multi-billion-dollar space-ship rolling through lower-middle-class neighborhoods. It gave one a true sense of democracy. And being Los Angeles, there were ethnic groups from all over the globe there to watch the spaceship go by.

  • ...your chances of becoming an astronaut are down from 1 in 13 million to 1 in 1832.

    I'll take some of that action.

  • How do the Americans now travel to space? Do they still have some Apollo rockets?

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