It's a bird! It's a plane! It's NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour on the back of a plane? After a long trip from Cape Canaveral in Florida, Endeavor has reached its new home in Los Angeles.
Endeavour began its journey at NASA headquarters in Cape Canaveral, Florida on the back of a modified Boeing 747 aircraft on Wednesday. It spent the night in Houston on Thursday where many NASA workers are located. On Thursday, it went soaring above Tucson, Arizona as a salute to Mark Kelly, who was cammander of Endeavour's last mission, and his wife, former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head in a January 2011 shooting.
On Friday, thousand took to bridges and the top of skscrapers and looked up at the skies to see the Endeavour fly through California as it will find its new home at the California Science Center in Southern California. The pilot of the Boeing 747 the carried the shuttle put on a show for the onlookers as he passed the state Capitol, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hollywood Sign and many other icons before landing at Los Angeles International Airport at 1 p.m.
As Endeavour flew over several cities, thousands of people watched and took to social media to discuss the historic sight. The hashtag #SpotTheShuttle quickly became a trending topic on Twitter.
The 75-ton winged space shuttle will be unbolted and prepped for a shorter, slower journey to the museum next month.The shuttle still has to go another 12 miles to the museum by street. Work crews have spent several weeks removing trees and taking down utility poles so that Endeavour can have a clear path. The city has promised to replace these trees and poles after Endeavour makes the trip.
"Let me be the first to say, welcome to Los Angeles, Endeavour," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said during a ceremony when Endeavor touched down on the tarmac, according to Reuters.
The space shuttle Endeavor is expected to be on display starting October 30.
"Endeavour will quickly become a must-see attraction in Los Angeles," Villaraigosa says. "More importantly, it will motivate our young people to dream about the possibilities of a world beyond our own. Endeavour is an impressive testament to the history and heritage of space exploration and aerospace innovation in our region."
To many, the historic moment of seeing the shuttle make its final flight was bittersweet.
"It's the end of an era," John Norman, 45, a technical manager from Los Angeles, who visited Kennedy Space Center in Florida to see Endeavour's final launch told Reuters. "It's just one of those boyhood dreams."
"There's a lot of nostalgia," said Anthony Falzone, a 40-year-old lawyer. "When I was a kid, Apollo was long gone, and this was the space program, this was my experience with manned spaceflight."
Endeavour had a long and busy career. It went on 25 missions. Twelve of those missions were to help build the space station. Endeavour helped NASA complete the U.S. portion of the $100 billion International Space Station. The space station orbits 250 miles above earth and is permanently staffed.
Endeavour, which was built as a replacement for Challenger, which was destroyed in an accident in 1986, logged almost 123 million miles in its career. It was retired last year after the completion of the space station.
"(Endeavour) was my first ride to space and it was in 2008. It was very special being a rookie with her and I look forward to seeing her when she's finally settled into her new home," former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman told Reuters. "Though I do have a bone to pick with her. She had a few malfunctions and the alarms went off twice. But at the end of the day I'm here, she kept me safe. I forgive her."
All of NASA's three surviving shuttles will now be on display. The oldest surviving shuttle Discovery is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center outside Washington. The Enterprise is on display at the Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space museum in New York City.
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