Making science fun
Jeff Rudolph, president of the California Science Center, stands at the museum’s entrance. Photo by David Rosenfeld Jeff Rudolph leads the California Science Center to space and beyond It was 20 years ago that Jeff Rudolph, president of the California Science Center, sat down with head Air and Space curator Ken Phillips and sketched out the idea to acquire one of NASA’s famed space shuttles someday. The shuttle program had barely just begun, but they put it down as a possibility. They even made a drawing of it standing upright as if ready to launch. “I remember saying, you know they are going to retire the fleet at some point,” Phillips said. “You just don’t know when.” The two had started thinking about what types of aircraft they would want to display, going forward, that represented milestones in flight, including space flight. They already had artifacts from the Apollo program, much of which was built by engineers in the Southland, so they understood the significance to the area. At the time, a space shuttle exhibit seemed like such a long shot, just sort of tacked onto a long-term vision for the museum, known in those days as the California Museum of Science and Industry. “It…
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