Images of the Day... So early this morning, I finally got around to checking out space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. In case you're wondering why I took so many pictures with the orbiter, it's because I was hoping I'd run into that one fellow patron who did a decent job framing me and the spacecraft within a shot (RE: Including Endeavour's cockpit windows and nose in the same image). Alas, there were no (other) decent photographers at the Samuel Oschin Pavilion...and there are only two or three people I personally know who are truly interested in NASA stuff, but they were at work. I took the day off for this visit. Oh well.

For images that I took of Endeavour today, check out my Human Spaceflight Blog.

Courtesy of Transterrestrial Musings

Endeavour and the L.A. Stereotype... Since the space shuttle Endeavour has safely been inside the Samuel Oschin Pavilion for almost five days now, just thought I'd post the hilarious pic above...and also show how the orbiter is actually doing in her new home at the California Science Center below.

So proud to be an Angeleno.


Los Angeles Times / Lawrence K. Ho


Courtesy of Facebook

NASA / Jim Ross

Photos of the Day... Space shuttle Endeavour and the USS Iowa—two of Los Angeles' newest museum exhibits of 2012—are featured in these snapshots. Awesome.


Courtesy of Facebook

Welcome home, Endeavour! Words can't describe the amazing and historic experience that I—as well as millions of other people across the California coastline (except in San Diego)—enjoyed as a majestic piece of American ingenuity elegantly soared in the skies above the Golden State earlier today. Needless to say, I'm totally looking forward to seeing Endeavour travel through the streets of downtown Los Angeles exactly three weeks from now...as the space shuttle embarks on the final leg of her journey to the California Science Center for permanent museum display. Woohoo.

NASA / Kim Shiflett

Endeavour is finally headed to Los Angeles... At 4:22 AM, Pacific Daylight Time today, the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) carrying the retired orbiter Endeavour departed from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the final time. As of this entry, Endeavour and the SCA are currently parked on the tarmac at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. The craft will remain there for a day before taking to the skies once more and heading on the last leg of their journey to Southern California. The SCA will make a refueling stop at El Paso, Texas before flying through New Mexico on its way to Edwards Air Force Base in California tomorrow. It will be on Friday morning that Endeavour will soar into the sky one last time...departing from Edwards Air Force Base and giving spectators up north in Sacramento and San Francisco an aerial thrill before heading back to L.A. to wow Angelenos on the ground, prior to her touching down at Los Angeles International Airport.

Below is one of the most iconic photos of space shuttle Endeavour—taken during her final flight to the International Space Station on STS-134 last year.


Roscosmos / ESA / NASA

NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis

Six days from now... Endeavour is now placed atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft that will ferry her across the country to Southern California on Monday. Final securing (tightening of bolts at the attachment joints) of Endeavour to the modified jumbo jet will take place tomorrow. Still doing research about where to go at LAX to see the orbiter land next Thursday...


NASA / Kim Shiflett


NASA / Kim Shiflett

NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis


NASA / Kim Shiflett


NASA / Kim Shiflett

NASA / Kim Shiflett

A week from today, space shuttle Endeavour will be arriving in Los Angeles courtesy of the modified Boeing 747 shown in these pics. I'm planning to drive down to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on September 20 to get a glimpse of the retired orbiter as she touches down at LAX...though I'm still doing research online in terms of knowing exactly where to go so I can get decent snapshots of Endeavour as she comes in for a landing. Stay tuned.


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA / Kim Shiflett


NASA / Kim Shiflett

Happy New Year, Everyone! 2012 looks to be an action-packed year in terms of sports, movies, politics, space exploration and—if you’re gonna buy into the hype, the end of the world. With sports, you can look forward to the XXX Olympic Summer Games taking place in London. With movies, you have huge summer blockbusters such as The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers waiting to storm into your local theater...with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings follow-up, Part 1 of The Hobbit, storming cinemas this winter. Oh, and don’t forget that Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Titanic and Finding Nemo are returning to the multiplex as well, in 3-D. With politics, you have the U.S. presidential election taking place this November (we'll see if the slight improvements in the economy, the conclusion of the war in Iraq and last spring’s elimination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan will send Obama back to the White House).



With space exploration, you have SpaceX and a few other private companies finally launching commercially-made spacecraft into Earth orbit and to the International Space Station itself. Plus, the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia will finally receive the retired space shuttle Discovery in April while the California Science Center (in downtown Los Angeles...30 miles from where I currently live) will get Discovery’s sister ship Endeavour, also decommissioned, this August. Taking place in August as well will hopefully be the safe and successful landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.



I'm sure that all of you have things to look forward to this year as well (positive things—not Doomsday this December). Let them come to fruition. As for the Mayan calendar coming to an end on December 21: I hope it doesn't affect the box office take of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey too much...otherwise, Peter Jackson probably won’t be too thrilled. Just being facetious. That is all.



January 2012
-NASA's GRAIL-B spacecraft arrives at the Moon (Jan 1)
-BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans, Louisiana: LSU vs. Alabama (Jan 9)
-Contraband (Jan 13)
-Beauty and the Beast 3D (Jan 13)
-69th Annual Golden Globe Awards (Jan 15)
-Red Tails (Jan 20)
-Underworld: Awakening (Jan 20)
-The Grey (Jan 27)
-Near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros passes Earth at 16.6 million miles (Jan 31)



February 2012
-Super Bowl XLVI in Indiana (Feb 5)
- First flight of SpaceX’s Dragon ship to the International Space Station (Feb 7)
-Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D (Feb 10)
-Launch of Japan’s third H-2 Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station (Feb 18)
-54th Annual Grammy Awards (Feb 12)
-Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Feb 17)
-This Means War (Feb 17)
-54th annual Daytona 500 in Florida (Feb 26)
-2012 NBA All-Star Game in Orlando, Florida (Feb 26)
-84th Academy Awards (Feb 26)



March 2012
-Launch of Europe’s third Automated Transfer Vehicle, Edoardo Amaldi, to the International Space Station (Mar 7)
-John Carter (Mar 9)
-2012 NCAA March Madness basketball tournament begins with Opening Round Game (Mar 13)
-21 Jump Street (Mar 16)
-The Hunger Games (Mar 23)
-Conclusion of the March Madness tournament prior to the 2012 Final Four games in New Orleans (Mar 24)
-Wrath of the Titans (Mar 30)
-2012 NCAA Final Four basketball tournament in New Orleans, Louisiana (Mar 31)



April 2012
-NCAA Final Four Championship Game in New Orleans, Louisiana (Apr 2)
-American Reunion (Apr 6)
-Titanic 3D (Apr 6)
-Retired space shuttle Discovery is transported to Washington, D.C. for permanent museum display (Apr 12)
-The Three Stooges (Apr 13)
-Space shuttle prototype Enterprise is transported to New York City for permanent museum display (Apr 17)
-NFL Draft (Apr 26-28)



May 2012
-The Avengers (May 4)
-Battleship (May 18)
-Annular solar eclipse over the Pacific Ocean (May 20)
-Men in Black III (May 25)
-Start of the 2012 French Open tennis tournament (May 27)
-96th Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (May 27)



June 2012
-The second and last solar transit of Venus of the century (Jun 6)
-Prometheus (Jun 8)
-Conclusion of the 2012 French Open (Jun 10)
-G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Jun 29)
-Start of the 2012 Tour de France (Jun 30)



July 2012
-The Amazing Spider-Man (Jul 3)
-2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Kansas City, Missouri (Jul 10)
-SpaceX’s Dragon ship launches cargo to the International Space Station (Jul 10)
-Start of the 2012 World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria (Jul 18)
-The Dark Knight Rises (Jul 20)
-Conclusion of the World Rowing Championships (Jul 21)
-Conclusion of the Tour de France (Jul 22)
-Opening Ceremony – XXX Olympic Summer Games of London (Jul 27)
-NASA’s Dawn spacecraft departs from asteroid Vesta and heads for dwarf planet Ceres (TBA)



August 2012
-The Bourne Legacy (Aug 3)
-Total Recall (Aug 3)
-Retired space shuttle Endeavour embarks on brief cross-country tour before arriving in Los Angeles for permanent museum display (Aug 4)
-NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover arrives at the Red Planet (Aug 5)
-Closing Ceremony – Olympic Summer Games (Aug 12)
-The Expendables 2 (Aug 17)



September 2012
-The 9/11 Memorial Museum is scheduled to open in New York City (Sep 11)
-Finding Nemo 3D (Sep 14)
-Resident Evil: Retribution (Sep 14)
-Dredd (Sep 21)



October 2012
-Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus freighter launches to the International Space Station (Oct 2)
-Taken 2 (Oct 5)
-Gangster Squad (Oct 19)



November 2012
-Red Dawn (Nov 2)
-United States presidential election (Nov 6)
-Skyfall (Nov 9)
-Total solar eclipse over Northern Australia and South Pacific (Nov 13)
-The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (Nov 16)



December 2012
-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Dec 14)
-The Mayan Long Count calendar ends...a.k.a. Doomsday (Dec 21)
-World War Z (Dec 21)
-This is Forty (Dec 21)
-The Great Gatsby (Dec 25)
-The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires (Dec 31)

NASA / JPL / Malin Space Sciences System / RichTPar

FOBOS-GRUNT... That’s the name of the latest robotic Mars mission by Russia to be on the verge of ending in failure. What I find mind-boggling is the fact The Planetary Society—a well-known non-profit space advocacy group based in Pasadena, California—would continue to rely on Russia to send its many exciting projects towards space throughout the years, only to fail after launch during the process. The first disappointment came in 1996, when the Mars ’96 spacecraft, carrying The Planetary Society’s first Vision of Mars CD-ROM, ended up at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean after the Proton rocket carrying the probe suffered a mechanical problem after liftoff. [Another Vision of Mars DVD (shown below) has since found its way onto the surface of Mars...courtesy of NASA’s now-defunct but very-successful Phoenix lander.] The second disappointment came in 2005, when a Volna rocket—carrying the Society’s Cosmos 1 solar sail—malfunctioned after launch, preventing Cosmos 1 from reaching its intended orbit. And now stranded in low-Earth orbit (LEO) with Fobos-Grunt is the Society’s Phobos LIFE (Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment) project...which consists of a canister (a.k.a. 'biomodule') that contains millions of microorganisms that were intended to test the "Transpermia Hypothesis": Which theorizes that microbes could survive trips between planets onboard rocks blasted into deep space by impacts. A Shuttle LIFE canister, which is similar to the one placed on Fobos-Grunt, successfully flew into LEO onboard the orbiter Endeavour during flight STS-134 last May.


The Planetary Society

The Planetary Society has another project coming up...the Lightsail-1 solar sail that is currently scheduled to fly into space no earlier than mid-2012. No launch vehicle has yet been selected to send Lightsail-1 into Earth orbit. Not to sound like an arrogant Yankee space geek or something, but I really do hope the Society considers American rockets and American rockets only (and maybe a Japanese H-IIA vehicle) when it comes to choosing a means of transport once Lightsail-1 is ready to soar into the sky. Of course, since Lightsail-1 will be a secondary payload, it’s up to the organization that is responsible for the primary payload to decide which rocket will be used for the mission. But I’ll take a Delta II, an Atlas V or a Falcon 9 vehicle (a Delta IV rocket, currently the largest in the U.S. expendable launch vehicle inventory, might be bit of an overkill) over a converted Russian submarine-launched ballistic missile (which is what Cosmos 1 flew on) any day. Though I hope the Society doesn’t consider a Taurus XL rocket when/if that one becomes operational again. I’m still peeved over the Glory spacecraft’s launch failure last March.


The Planetary Society

PH1 Jeff Hilton

BOUND FOR SOCAL... Earlier last month, it was announced that the battleship USS Iowa would find a permanent home at the Port of Los Angeles. The famous warship is expected to be towed from her current location at Suisun Bay in Northern California to San Pedro in Southern California by early next year...depending on weather conditions in the Pacific in either December or January. The USS Iowa will be managed by the Pacific Battleship Center, a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles.

This is great news for SoCal. Along with the fact Los Angeles’ California Science Center will be getting space shuttle Endeavour (which is currently being decommissioned at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after being retired in June) as early as next August, 2012 looks to be a great year to be a space or military buff living in the City of Angels.

Of course, one wonders if there’ll eventually be Halloween tours onboard the USS Iowa (a la the Queen Mary’s annual Halloween haunt fest in Long Beach) after it arrives in LA. If you remember the tragic accident that took place onboard the Iowa in 1989, then you’ll know why I’m wondering that. Hey, it’s a legitimate (albeit tasteless) question...for the most part. Carry on.


NASA / Ken Shiflett

NASA / Chuck Tintera

NEXT STOP: LOS ANGELES! Congratulations to the 6-member crew of mission STS-134 for completing a successful 16-day flight to the International Space Station, as well as bringing to an end space shuttle Endeavour's final voyage into low-Earth orbit. For the rest of the year, Endeavour will undergo decommissioning at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida before the orbiter is transported to her last destination sometime in 2012: the California Science Center in downtown Los Angeles. I totally can’t wait to see the 'jewel' of the space shuttle fleet [which is what Endeavour was called when she was unveiled to the public at her assembly facility (in Palmdale, California) 20 years ago] in person once she finally goes on display at the museum.


Roscosmos / ESA / NASA

Up next for her own finale: space shuttle Atlantis...which was slowly making her way to KSC’s Launch Complex 39A around the time Endeavour touched down in Florida. In the next hour or so, Atlantis will be situated on the pad to begin preparations for STS-135, the final flight of the space shuttle program. Within two months, a momentous 30-year era in human spaceflight will come to a close. Let’s hope it ends safely and triumphantly.


NASA / Kim Shiflett

NASA

ENDEAVOUR’S FINAL ACT... Earlier this morning, NASA’s youngest space shuttle orbiter took off on her final mission to install a large physics experiment known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station (ISS). Endeavour will dock with the ISS this Wednesday...and the crew of STS-134 will embark on its main objectives for this flight before heading back home on June 1st. Here’s hoping that the mission is extremely successful, and that Endeavour safely returns to Earth more than 2 weeks from now. ‘Cause after that, she will be prepped at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for her trip to Los Angeles next year...where Endeavour will find her final retirement home at the California Science Center. Can’t wait to pay a visit after she gets there.


Stefanie Gordon

Below are construction photos of Endeavour, courtesy of Space.com. Visit that website for more pics.


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