Space shuttle thrills with South Bay flyover [PHOTOS]
- [scrollGallery id = 474]
Crowds gathered early on the south side of Los Angeles International Airport in El Segundo Friday morning to catch a glimpse of history. The space shuttle would be airborne for the last time.
Kim Calimlim said she wasn’t planning on coming to the airport, but her husband’s excitement brought them to a grassy hill off Imperial Highway at 9:30 in the morning.
“It’s a once in a lifetime thing,” Calimlim said. “I’m so glad I came. It’s actually been very exciting.”
Space shuttle Endeavour lands at Los Angeles International Airport. Photo by David Rosenfeld
The space shuttle Endeavour made a spectacular tour of the Southland just before mid-day on Friday, making two passes on the runway, circling over the beach cities and downtown Los Angeles.
Erica Moreali, who works nearby in El Segundo, was speaking to a friend at Disneyland who reported the shuttle Endeavour overhead. “It’s coming,” Moreali reported to the crowd.
“It’s a moment in history,” she said. “This is our era, our generation. I think it’s pretty cool. It’s actually quite moving to me.”
Suddenly a single voice shouted out from the back. “There it is!” And at once the cameras went up and excitement boiled for the last fly over for a national treasure.
On-lookers catch the first glimpse of space shuttle Endeavour over the skies of El Segundo. Photo by David Rosenfeld
Jeanie Pelzman, a 78-year-old El Segundo resident who lives near the runway, said it felt good to be a part of history. She recalled the Challenger explosion and how vividly she can remember it.
“Every time the shuttle went up I would get a knot in my stomach,” Pelzman said. “To see it coming home for the last time and coming home to LA is a very special thing.”
The shuttle will remain at LAX for several weeks as it prepares to be transported along city streets to the California Science Center. The journey requires the removal of roughly 400 trees, which the museum plans to accommodate by replanting four times that many. Roughly 200 light fixtures will also have to moved and electrical lines raised to make enough room for Endeavor as it plans to inch along surface streets in October.
It’s all worth it, many of argued, for the benefits that will come from having the space shuttle in Los Angeles, home to a large share of the aerospace industry where interest in science and engineering has been waning.
Behind the acquisition of Endeavor was the Science Center’s president Jeff Rudolph, featured in the upcoming October issue of Peninsula People.
“The science center has a really vital role in the education science learning process,” Rudolph said. “Without that inspiration, without the connections where kids say, ‘hey, that’s really fun, and I can understand it and it’s relevant to my life.’ They aren’t going to go to school or read books or go on the Internet to learn more about it. That’s the role we play.”