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Shuttle Endeavour Embarking to Los Angeles Museum

Posted by samzenpus on from the pack-it-up dept.

Endeavour will be the second of NASA's space shuttles to leave the Kennedy Space Center. The ship will piggyback on top of a specially modified 747 and head to a Los Angeles museum this week. From the article: "Endeavour's lifespan was relatively short by shuttle standards - 25 missions over 20 years, totaling 299 days in space. But those flights ran the gamut of orbital odysseys, including the sheer moxie of its May 1992 debut when three astronauts made an impromptu and unprecedented spacewalk to rescue a stranded Intelsat communications satellite."

7 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Endeavour going Hollywood? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Moving to L.A. has a tendency to change people. But I don't think Endeavour will have a problem staying grounded... Too Soon?

  2. Not so Fast... by SrLnclt · · Score: 2

    Weather delays Endeavour's last trip.

  3. And hundreds of street trees sacrificed by michaelmalak · · Score: 2, Informative

    And hundreds of street trees are being cut down. Street trees are not only aesthetic, but they provide shade to pedestrians (reducing VMT), protect pedestrians from cars jumping the curb, and provide shade to adjacent buildings, reducing energy consumption.

    But just on aesthetics alone, the resultant concrete jungle visual blight will drag down that local economy far more than a space shuttle tourist attraction. The shuttle will be long forgotten before replacement trees can be grown.

    1. Re:And hundreds of street trees sacrificed by Oceanplexian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The shuttle will be long forgotten before replacement trees can be grown.

      NASA is taking the most environmentally conscious route possible, so much so that they re-routed the transport of the shuttle to preserve the most trees. That said, somehow local flora (which they are replanting) is more historically significant than a vehicle that inspires us to transcend our own planetary existence?

    2. Re:And hundreds of street trees sacrificed by evilviper · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's unfortunate that the trees need to be removed, but twice as many will be planted to replace them.

      And we're not talking about old-growth forrests here... every other year I hear about LA losing more trees than this to disease, pollution, or invasive species (Chinese elm beetles, anyone?). The only difference is that this year it's intentional, but I wouldn't have assumed any of these trees would have survived for decades to come, anyhow.

      And more to the point, if your neighborhood goes from nice to "blighted" by the loss of a few trees, you've got some serious problems which should be addressed, immediately.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    3. Re:And hundreds of street trees sacrificed by Teancum · · Score: 2

      The problem with the Space Shuttle wasn't the vehicle itself or even having it built. The problem is that it became a dead end technology because nothing was built upon the engineering learned from building it. The engineers who designed the Space Shuttle are now retired, and the follow on projects have also been canceled. If there has been a "Shuttle Mark 2" or some other follow up vehicle that largely did the same thing but using more modern materials, learned from engineering mistakes, and avoided some of the compromises that crippled the original Shuttle design.... it could have been amazing.

      Instead, NASA threw it all away and essentially went back to the Saturn V, saying it was a mistake to abandon that line of technology 40 years ago. Well, sort of, as they still are using some of the rougher parts of the Shuttle technology such as the solid rocket boosters.

      As for transcending spacecraft, if SpaceX ever gets their Falcon XX rocket built (capable of sending a fully loaded 747 into orbit complete with passengers, crew, baggage, fuel, and even oxygen tanks) it will transform the space launch industry in a huge way and make kids dream about the future in a huge way. The only problem is trying to find a customer that would need that kind of lift. The Falcon Heavy is a good spacecraft though, and will be capable of sending a spacecraft to the Moon. Not many people have done that and certainly no private spaceflight efforts have done anything like that yet.

    4. Re:And hundreds of street trees sacrificed by spitzak · · Score: 2

      More to the point, the trees being cut are mostly Ficus trees which destroy sidewalks and cost the city a huge amount of money, and they are not in any way original or ancient (they were popular because they grow really fast). They are to be replaced with twice as many trees, of different species that do not have invasive surface roots.