![]() ![]() “I don’t think anything could be better than this moment right now,” said Hannah Huynh, 9, a Stoddard fourth-grader. It passed within a few hundred yards of the school, just a stone’s throw from Disneyland. Nearby, more than 600 students from Anaheim’s Stoddard Elementary School ran screaming across the school blacktop Friday as they jostled for a better view of the Endeavour as it soared by almost directly overhead. ![]() “To be in one of the few places where it flew by was pretty cool, especially being a member of the military.” “How often do you see a rocket land?” asked Marcus McNabb, 31, of Cerritos, who watched from the Downtown Disney parking lot. The parks are a no-fly zone, and Disney officials said this was the first time such a flyover has been allowed. In Orange County, it buzzed Disneyland and California Adventure, heading east over the Little Mermaid ride. Friday, touring first Lancaster and Palmdale before heading to Northern California to fly over the Capitol and San Francisco.Īlong the way, it has made low, sweeping flyovers above significant aerospace sites, museums and aquariums, and cultural icons. It spent Thursday night at Edwards Air Force Base before taking off at 8:17 a.m. live and learn.The shuttle arrived in California on Thursday after spending the night in Houston and making flyovers along the way. Boosting them high enough to sustain orbit, then refitting them into usable habitat, similar to Sky Lab’s design, was NOT that ‘far out’ of an idea. dzzzzzzĪnd also, I think it was irresponsible to not reuse the existing shuttle main tanks on orbit. The previously envisioned space plane booster could have been used for many other types of vehicle launches. And one that used solid rocket boosters (Thanks also to the efforts of ATF and Sen. This design left the main tank unusable and discarded – to be incinerated upon re-entry. What we got in return was a much less capable and far less robust design. Then President Richard Nixon put an end to the ‘dream’ of an inexpensive way to LEO when he urged NASA to ‘rethink’, then downsize the space shuttle plan. These concepts were dropped as the price for building those complex booster stages soared. The booster stage was envisioned as a reusable giant hypersonic winged plane/launch platform. or pork? A bit of history? The original shuttle designs were for a MUCH more robust system. It cost around $! billion dollars for every launch! The term ‘boondoogle’ comes to mind here…. The shuttle… gets a robust thumbs up for what it WAS able to accomplish! But sadly, a thumbs down for the unrealized promise of an inexpensive way to get to LEO. Read more and find the full flight itinerary on the NASA news release. On Twitter and along Endeavour’s route? NASA encourages people to share their shuttle sightings using the hashtags #spottheshuttle and #OV105, Endeavour’s orbiter vehicle designation. Endeavour completed 25 missions, spent 299 days in orbit, and orbited Earth 4,671 times while traveling 122,883,151 miles. On May 16, 2011, Endeavour launched on its final mission, STS-134:Ĭompleted in July 1990, Endeavour (OV-105) was the last shuttle orbiter to be constructed for NASA. On August 16 Endeavour was moved from KSC’s Orbiter Processing Facility 2 to the Vehicle Assembly Building, where it’s being housed temporarily until its departure on the 17th. 30, the shuttle will be on permanent display in the science center’s Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion, beginning its new mission commemorating past achievements in human spaceflight and educating and inspiring future generations of explorers. ![]()
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