“We thought about what would be the best way to display it, would have the most impact on everybody who sees it, but particularly young people, and create that spark that makes them dream and think that someday they want to be on a spacecraft like this, or participate in building one.”
“We didn’t think about doing it the easiest way to display this,” Rudolph said. But displaying an entire space shuttle requires a structure with an open interior, Rudolph said. Designing the building was a challenge: A typical building of that size has floors, walls and columns. To house Endeavour as if it’s preparing for launch, the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will rise 20 stories. Part of the reason no other museum has displayed a space shuttle or Saturn V rocket vertically is the enormous cost and technical difficulty in doing so. And it’s really sad that we’re not able to keep flying something like that,” Chamitoff said. “It was an amazing thing that we were flying. By contrast, with the space shuttle, “so much of the vehicle makes it into space, and then back down to the Earth.” “Whatever capsules are flying today, whether it’s Russian or SpaceX, you can fit three of them inside the shuttle cargo bay,” Chamitoff said. There are three remaining authentic Saturn V rockets on display, and all are displayed horizontally. It’s going to be pretty impressive,” Chamitoff said.Ĭhamitoff said he thought the exhibit would be more dramatic than, for example, exhibits showing the Saturn V rocket that launched astronauts on the Apollo program to the moon, which are mostly just fuel tanks, with only a tiny proportion of the spacecraft returning to Earth. And then it’ll be disappearing from you, up into the size of a building. With the addition of the twin solid rocket boosters and the fuel tank, the overall look when added to the shuttle itself will appear “more than double that size. “When you see the shuttle on the launchpad, and you’re standing below it - it’s just a spectacular perspective.” “It’s gonna be pretty impressive,” Greg Chamitoff, a former astronaut who flew aboard Endeavour twice, including on its last flight, said in an interview.
Roughly halfway through the building’s construction, the shuttle will be moved into the structure, and the rest of the building will then be finished.Īstronauts have cheered the Science Center for designing the exhibit so that people will be able to see the last space shuttle ever built in a way relatively few have seen it before. Building construction of the California Science Center’s Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will probably take three years, but it will take longer for the interior to be completed. Once complete, the exhibit will be what’s believed to be the tallest vertical authentic spacecraft display in the world. Of the three surviving space shuttles, Endeavour will be the only one displayed with its nose pointing to the stars, and will be fully attached to the last remaining authentic orange external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters. In a milestone, the Los Angeles home of the retired space shuttle Endeavour broke ground Wednesday on a permanent museum, which ultimately envisions the spacecraft displayed as if ready for launch.
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