![]() ![]() She and her husband watch shuttles take off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and land at Edwards Air Force Base. Jeanette Bisbee, a retiree from Whittier, has long been fascinated by the space program. They chatted and set up cameras while waiting for Endeavour to show up. This morning, guests milled across the lawn, which is dotted with vintage airplanes. And now it will be in its resting place.”Ī few hundred people came for a viewing at the Proud Bird restaurant, a South Bay fixture next door to the airport and a good spot to see landings. “I was in high school and I stayed home to watch it.”Īnd now Sanchez was a little sad to witness the end of an era. “I still remember the first day when the Enterprise lifted off,” she said. Gilda Sanchez, who had worked as an administrator on the B-1B bomber project at Rockwell International, called the flight bittersweet. “I just want to hear it coming in,” said Gilda Sanchez of Hawthorne, who turned out with her husband, Fred, a project manager at Boeing. The pair brought step stools and ladders to see over the crowd on Imperial, which is at least 10 people deep. “It’s not every day you get to see a space shuttle on the back of a 747 flying in,” said Gary Winterboer, a photographer who car-pooled this morning with a friend from Granada Hills. Kids were riding bikes and people were carrying coolers and lawn chairs.Ĭrowds were thick on Imperial Highway in El Segundo, where news vans were lined up. Parking spots were in short supply by 10 a.m., while spectators waited for the shuttle to appear overhead. “I started at 5 this morning and there were already dozens of people up on the hill. “There are a lot of people who are really into it,” said Atkinson, who was stationed at Main Street and Imperial Avenue, where spectators were lining up. “It makes me feel kind of weird that a vehicle I ride in is being put into a museum, but our missions aren’t over,” said the Manhattan Beach resident.Īlong an overlook in El Segundo adjacent to LAX, people started arriving as early as midnight, said El Segundo police Detective Eric Atkinson. Reisman was at the the United Airlines hangar at LAX, which is where the Endeavour will be parked before moving to the California Science Center next month. Garrett Reisman, a retired NASA astronaut who actually flew on the Endeavour in 2008, said he had mixed feelings about seeing its last flight. ![]() And shortly after, it made a dramatic pass over LAX before heading out to more Southern California landmarks. Just before noon, Endeavour was over Malibu and Santa Monica. Next up: Los Angeles-area landmarks including the Hollywood sign and Disneyland before its final descent at LAX. “I was going to leave him in day care but thought this is a once-in-a-lifetime deal,” said Montgomery, whose aunt was an engineer on the early Apollo missions.Īfter circling Sacramento, Endeavour veered toward the San Francisco Bay area, swooping over the Golden Gate Bridge as throngs snapped pictures on their cellphones and shared on social media sites. Matthew Montgomery took a break from his work as a legislative aide and brought his 2-year-old son, Tavion, to see Endeavour airborne. A crowd of schoolchildren squealed in delight during the second flyover. Thousands of spectators jammed rooftop buildings and streets in Sacramento, cheering as Endeavour made two loops around the state Capitol. Hitching a ride on top of a jumbo jet, the pair departed Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, circling the high desert that gave birth to the shuttle fleet before heading to Northern California. ![]() Space shuttle Endeavour crisscrossed California today in a last aerial hurrah before retiring to a Los Angeles museum.įrom San Francisco to the Hollywood Hills to El Segundo, thousands of people waited along the orbiter’s route to see it fly one last time before landing at Los Angeles International Airport.
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