Space Shuttle Endeavor Lands In Los Angeles After Final Flight

Today the space shuttle Endeavor completed its final ferry flight, landing in Los Angeles, California after leaving Edwards Air Force Base earlier today. The shuttle will now undergo preparations for its journey through the streets of L.A. (at a cost of 400+ trees) to its final resting place at the California Science Center. It'll go on public display October 30. Endeavor spent over 296 days in space throughout 25 missions, comprising 4,671 orbits that added up to over 197 million kilometers of travel. Slashdot's own Kaushik Acharya was at the Griffith Observatory in L.A. for the flyover, and he provided some great pictures of Endeavor's passing.

Comments

Saw It

[Bruce Perens]

I went on the back patio of the Space Sciences lab at Berkeley, up the hill from the Lawrence Hall of Science (the "Command Center" building in the movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project").

Nice low-level flight right over Berkeley.

My kid was in class, heard the sound of the low-level flight, and they all saw it right out of the classroom window.

Gee, the end of an era. We could have had so much more. It's good that we have SpaceX doing something sensible about space flight, and NASA funding enough of that, but I think we learned one sad lesson from the Space Program: You can't trust the American electorate and their political representatives to do what's important for the future of the species.

Re:Saw It

[Bruce Perens]

Don't be so sure. Our democracy is heavily manipulated by wealth, and not all votes have the same weight due to an antequated thing called the "Electoral College". Essentially, my vote in California will not be as important as a vote in a "swing state" such as Ohio.

I think we mostly have a plutocracy, like most places.

Re:Saw It

[ridgecritter]

I saw Endeavour today as it headed south to overfly Moffett Field. End of an era, yes, and I do miss our nation's having a spacecraft, even one with the Shuttle's long list of flaws and shortcomings.

But we *are* doing quite a lot of stuff out there:

- We just landed a nuclear powered, laser-zapping mobile lab on Mars, and it's headed off to climb a mountain;
- Dawn recently lit up its ion drive and left orbit around the asteroid Vesta to visit another asteroid, Ceres;
- Cassini continues touring Saturn and its moons;
- Messenger is exploring Mercury from orbit;
- Opportunity is still wandering around on Mars, continuing eight years of exploration;
- We're still getting good data from Voyagers 1 and 2, over a third of a century after they were launched.

I've left stuff out, but you get my point. The space age has arrived, but in a different way and at a slower pace than most of us might have wanted. But it's here, and it's not going away.

Saw the landing @LAX

[JoeF]

I was @LAX, and saw the fly-overs and the landing there. Great crowd.

Did the Russians fly it there?

[elrous0]

They seem to be the only ones capable of doing anything anymore. May as well let them do that too.

Re:Did the Russians fly it there?

[ackthpt]

The Russians have the same capability that we would have today if we kept building and launching Apollo command and service modules on Saturn 1. If you want to see how bad things are there, look at what happened to the one remaining Buran.

Commercial spaceflight is really the only hope. And so far we have one company that appears to be capable of doing it, and a very large number of failed efforts, which I guess is what is to be expected. We're really lucky to have that one company.

The minute private interests lose people on their own ventures you'll see how interested they remain in pursuing it.

One thing to have Ronnie make a heartfelt speach, another to hear a CEO anguish over it (and how it will affect the business, what with lawsuits, etc.)

Still feeling the way forward is through NASA, but perhaps with some partnership on these things.

Re:Did the Russians fly it there?

[loshwomp]

The minute private interests lose people on their own ventures you'll see how interested they remain in pursuing it.

If this were the case, we wouldn't be riding jet planes everywhere.

I'm not sure that's a good analogy. Rocket launches are several orders of magnitude riskier than commercial aviation, and while we can expect modest improvements, I don't see the trend changing much. Launching rockets is hard.

Re:Did the Russians fly it there?

[Bruce Perens]

I'm not sure that's a good analogy. Rocket launches are several orders of magnitude riskier than commercial aviation, and while we can expect modest improvements, I don't see the trend changing much. Launching rockets is hard.

In 10 years, more than 500 commercial fishermen (3% were actually women) died on the job in the United States alone. An employee who works 10 years has over a 1% chance of dying on the job.

Yet, liability doesn't kill the industry.

Re:Did the Russians fly it there?

[Bruce Perens]

Yes, I understand that commercial space != commercial manned space.

I think it was easier for other countries to deal with Russian aerospace before Putin started moving Russia back toward an authoritarian regime. At this point, they are nervous that they are bankrolling what is ultimately a military capability that can be used against them.

Re:Space Shuttle Endaevor?

[Svippy]

Gee, as it turns out, I cannot even spell 'endeavour' correctly. Goddamn, Muphry's Law.

Sacramento freeway came to a crawl

[nrozema]

I just happened to be on US 50 in the Sacramento area when it flew overhead. Traffic slowed to a crawl to get a peek, some people just stopped. Very cool that these things can cause that type of reaction - even as they're being mothballed.

Unfortunately the spectacle caused more than a few fender benders.

End of an era

[jfern]

No NASA manned flights. We're stuck hitching rides from the Russians. The Chinese will be sure to be kicking our asses in 10-20 years.

Re:End of an era

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, would you rather be spending $500 million to send a few guys up to the ISS when you could be spending $50 million to do the same task?

I'm a huge fan of the Space Shuttle. But it's time is up. It's expensive to run and can't really do anything that can't be done on ISS. Dragging it out with more launches just to drop off a few astronauts and pick up the trash eats NASA's budget. I'd rather NASA spend the money on more interesting things in both the manned and unmanned realms. I mean, LEO? Been there, done that.

If it makes your jingoistic tendencies feel better, though, just wait a few years and an American company will be flying to ISS.

Re:Good video of the landing

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks... brought a tear to my eye to watch it though. To think my country did this before we inevitably succumbed to the greed of Wall Street, the corruption of Congress, and the ineptitude of the FED.

This is the same link.. just wrapped with the HTML to make it clickable.

Space Shuttle Endeavour lands at LAX

Re:How do you guarentee a safe shuttle flight?

[letherial]

planes have more of a average crash rate then the shuttle did...just FYI

Tough time tracking it

[ackthpt]

Twitter was nearly useless, with all the chaff and incomplete information "It's over my house! #spottheshuttle" Where is your house?!? Blah blah blah I'm standing on a roof and NASA coverage, which was replays of the previous day's flight. We finally found a USTREAM from Ames and after watching it pass out of the frame we all scampered outside to wait, as it wouldn't be long. Finally spotted it and I got a few pictures. Probably the most photographed object in the world, today.

Re:WRONG it wasn't ever in space

[Daniel Dvorkin]

it was in low earth orbit NOT space

How do you define "space," exactly?

My pics of the departure

[HangingChad]

Some pics of the SCA and Endeavor flying over KSC and the rocket garden.

The guy next to me was shooting video, watching it today I forgot how loud it was. It was a great moment.

At Edwards AFB when it landed there

[fructose]

I was at Edwards AFB yesterday when it landed. I can get to a couple great spots, so I took some great pictures. Here are some of the highlights.

Re:How do you guarentee a safe shuttle flight?

[hairyfeet]

But lets face it..the shuttle was a megaflop.

It was SUPPOSED to be a "space truck" that could take both the military (thus saving money) and civilian loads while having a fast enough turnaround time to make space travel truly economical but that's NOT what we ended up with. What we got was a ship that had too small a bed for military payloads, which meant we had to pay for Atlas for the military as well as the shuttle, and as we found the rigors of spaceflight meant that the inspections and work required to get it ready for another flight slowed things down too much to ever make it economical, finally they were supposed to be retired by 86 but because we never could settle on a replacement we kept sending up these aging birds until they finally started falling apart.

Frankly if we can't get the Apollo system back on line economically we ought to just fricking buy Soyuz. I'm sure the Russians would be happy to license their designs and sell us some rockets, we've been using their engines in our rockets for awhile now, why not just go all the way? It'll save us a ton of time and cash, the Russians will be happy for the checks, its a win/win as far as I can see and saves us having to hitch rides just to get anything done. The only other choice I see is man rating the Atlas or Delta rockets which who knows how much that'll cost.

"The future of the species"

[markjhood2003]

You can't trust the American electorate and their political representatives to do what's important for the future of the species.

For most of us here on Slashdot, space exploration is cool, exciting, motivating, and instills a sense of pride and adventure in ourselves as humans.

But I get so tired of this idea that space travel is important to the future of our species. Even if the only way we could survive would be through an exodus to other worlds, how does that solve the problems that would lead us to such an exodus? Until we become more enlightened here on Earth and make some progress in the nature of the human heart, we will only bring those problems with us.

What the heck is so important about the survival of our species anyway? Hopefully we'll involve into something more than we are now, but if we die out, that won't be so unusual as far as species go. Do we consider it a tragedy that the dinosaurs evolved into birds? Compared to the vastness, mystery, and awesomeness of the Universe as a whole, we're really insignificant.

I doubt that we're the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, let alone the entire Universe; there are probably many more to fulfill whatever purpose we have, if any, as sentient, self-aware, curious observers and participants in the evolution of the Universe. If they've managed to solve the problem of interstellar travel, they're probably praying that we'll become more civilized before we escape the bounds of our planet.

Re:Trees

[Bruce Perens]

NASA would have given it to Texas, which had a runway near the museum and would not have had to chop anything. LA was only going to get the shuttle if they didn't abuse it further than NASA already has in making it "museum ready".

Street trees last about 50 years and then are in general too sick to remain. Some of these went sooner than that, but the museum is replacing 1000 trees that will live 50 years now.

My video of the 200 ft flyby at KSC

[trout007]

After taking off from the Shuttle Landing Facility runway at KSC the Shuttle and Shuttle Carrier Aircraft looped around and did a 200 ft flyby down the runway. Pretty neat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOYoiIxZgO4

Re:Texas

[Unbeliever]

You just have to look at how badly JSC allowed the Saturn V to deteriorate to have some idea why it didn't go to Houston.

Endeavour Not Endeavor

[FrankDrebin]

It's named after a British sea ship, so British spelling applies, as reflected on the actual craft.

People love science, if you let them

[petsounds]

I was at LA's Griffith Observatory today for the flyover, and the crowd was not only massive (not only was every Griffith Park parking space filled, but also the nearby Greek Theater's parking lot), but it was very diverse. Young, old, in-between. A broad mix of races and probably economic level as well. Let's not forget, these people, and everyone else who went to a flyover area, were pumped for NASA, and for a symbol of an America that they can be proud of. Yes, certainly there was a novelty factor at play of a Space Shuttle flying around on top of a frickin 747, but regardless it was capturing their attention and imagination.

Looking at these people around me, it really struck me that there's a giant disconnect in how they view NASA in comparison to how Congress and the President(s) view it. People see NASA as a tool for exploration, a window to discovery, and a symbol of America's leadership and greatness in technological innovation. Our government often sees NASA at best as a way to put jobs in local districts, and at worst as an organization they try to starve because they can't get rid of it. Thank the universe that Curiosity landed in one piece, because it shone light on a NASA that was half-buried in the backyard. On the other hand, NASA recently chose to send another geology mission to Mars instead of sending a lander to float in a Titan sea. NASA needs to capture the public's imagination. The Curiosity Twitter account has been inundated by questions from the public on why Curiosity doesn't include a microphone in order to listen to the sounds of Mars; the stock answer is that a microphone doesn't fulfill a science need. Well half of the Apollo missions included activities by their astronauts that had no science goal. The goal was capturing the spirit of wonder. NASA must keep that in mind if it is to stay viable, let alone flourish, in the harsh budgetary environment it finds itself in.

Re:How do you guarentee a safe shuttle flight?

[rumith]

Frankly if we can't get the Apollo system back on line economically we ought to just fricking buy Soyuz.

Why on Earth would someone want that? Check out SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft; both seem to be pretty solid machines, and they are cheaper. Actually, I will not be surprised to see ISS crews scheduled to launch in 2016-2017 training to use Dragons instead of Soyuz. On a side note, there are some very fundamental problems with the Russian space industry at the moment, and alas I don't see them being fixed anytime soon.

Am I the only one...

[sitarlo]

...who realizes that flying a modified 747 in landing configuration carrying a 75 ton payload on its back with wheels up at low altitudes over populated areas is extremely dangerous, totally irresponsible, and completely illegal if anyone other than NASA did it? Thanks for risking hundreds of lives to show off Mr. Biden. Your incompetence is only outweighed by your arrogance. BTW, I love the space program, and I want people to learn about its history, but this really was a questionable stunt that has me worried about the complacency of our leadership.