After 20 years of service and 25 missions, NASA's fifth and final space worthy shuttle, the Endeavour, was finally retired last week.
The 85-ton space shuttle was hauled from the Los Angeles International Airport to its new home in the California Science Center. The distance it needed to travel was only 12 miles, but it was no trip to the park, that's for sure.
Whereas it used to rocket itself through space at a mind-blowing speed of 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h), on the streets of LA, it barely went faster than 2mph or less (~3 km/h) while rolling on a gigantic dolly, and that's when it wasn't forced to come to a full stop.
There were many obstacles to overcome, including trees, poles and even hoards of people who had gathered along the route to see the space shuttle.
As a result, Endeavour's 26th mission began late Thursday, October 11 and ended on Sunday, October 14.
You can watch the shuttles LA journey in two time-lapse videos no more than three-minutes long each, courtesy of The LA Times and the AP, right after the break.
3 Comments:
Those vids almost made me cry, but I'm sure great US of A knows what's best for the humankind focusing their efforts on hunting down terrorists rather than the space program.
Kinda depressing. Costs less than 10 billion to build and send 2 probes out.
Costs 30+ billion to build a warship.
A few days ago, you guys reported that a Toyota pulled the shuttle through LA. This video shows the rigging moving itself through the streets except for a block. And there it looks like the shuttle rigging is pushing the Toyota.
I kinda figured a Toyota couldn't pull a ~180k lb. space shuttle.
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