L.A. Gets a Second Space Shuttle and You Can Join the Motorcade
Excerpt: It’s missing a wing and the tail is a little janky, but jaws are sure to drop when a giant space shuttle cruises the streets of Downey next week en route to its new home. The shuttle mockup Inspiration measures 35 by 122 feet and, while it never went to space, had an outsized impact on the space program and on Los Angeles history.
The idea of a reliable and reusable truck that could haul objects to orbit was around long before the first astronaut reached space. A 1959 proposal called for a vehicle that would be launched on a missile and glide back to earth. By 1972 engineers at Downey’s North American/Rockwell (later Lockheed/Boeing) plant were putting the finishing touches on an aluminum, plywood and plastic mockup of what a full-sized spacecraft might look like. “It was never meant to go into space,” says Ben Dickow, President and Executive Director of the Columbia Memorial Space Center. “It was a valuable tool in figuring out how to build the shuttle and see how things fit while still on the ground.”