Endeavour's Slow Journey

The Space shuttle Endeavour still has not made it to it's final resting spot at the California Science Center. It was supposed to take the shuttle 2 days to travel 12 miles to its retirement home. It should arrive some time today.  In the end it's travelling slower than the 2 miles per hour it had planned to! LA traffic really stinks! haha


CBS News reports: Endeavour was mostly traveling on wide boulevards with some boasting as many lanes as a freeway. While there had been advance preparations, there was remaining work to be done during the move, including de-energizing power lines.

The route was selected after ruling out other options. Dismantling the shuttle would have ruined the delicate heat tiles. Helicoptering it to its destination was not feasible. Neither was crossing on freeways since the shuttle is too big to fit through the underpasses. The cost of transporting it cross-town was estimated at over $10 million.

Thousands of people have lined the route to get a picture of this piece of history. While some are upset at the 400 hundreds of mature trees that had to be cut down to accommodate the trek others say the value of keeping this piece of history far out weighs the ecological impact. What do you think?