October 14, 2012 - Endeavour

Yesterday, Endeavor took its final journey through the streets of LA on its way to its final home at the California Science Center in South Los Angeles.

In Focus/The Atlantic

And only stopped to film a Toyota commercial.

Let's go to Sizzler!

then I want a donut.

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Originally Posted by CaliforniaMama Yesterday, Endeavor took its final journey through the streets of LA on its way to its final home at the California Science Center in South Los Angeles.

You don't appreciate just how BIG that baby is, until you see it up close like that. Wow!

And the spaceship was dwarfed by the auxiliary fuel tan!

Can you imagine some street gang trying to auction off the Endeavor, on Craig's List, or sell it to a Pawn shop?

Actually there is a step by step plan to steal it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce And only stopped to film a Toyota commercial.

It's all about Randy's Donuts.

Well, I'm still bitter that the National Museum of the USAF didn't get a shuttle. It's only the Birthplace of Aviation. Why should the home of the Wright Brothers get to have a shuttle? Hmmmph.

... because NASA didn't really go to the moon.

It was all done on a movie stage, and the Air Force didn't want to be any part of it.

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Originally Posted by glatt I thought you were joking, but look at that Tundra in front!

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Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce I know I'm an old fart, and maybe a little too nostalgic, but I have a great deal of reverence for the space program.

When the shuttle flew over this region, it flew over my son's elementary school, and the kids spontaneously broke into a chant of USA..USA..USA.

When I heard that, I was both happy and sad. Happy that the kids were excited about something, but sad that they were chanting in pride of their country ending manned spaceflight.

SpaceX's Dragon makes me a little optimistic, but it just isn't the same.

Years and years ago (I am quite elderly) I was one of the many thousands who lined the River Thames embankments to watch this lovely craft being flown home from the Paris Airshow. It was piggy-backing a jumbo I think and the pilots brough it as low and slow as they could and I do remember it being a truly emotional event.

When our Concordes were taken out of the air one of them flew across my town to reach the airfield where it began its amazing life. It's still parked at the end of the runway - rotting - falling apart.

So pleased to see this wonderful vehicle going home to get some respect.

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Originally Posted by Spexxvet I hope you enjoyed it. Budget cuts will probably kill it.

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Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce I find this stunt offensive.

What did the space program do ?
... innovation to solve a big, new problem
... turn the routine over to private enterprise
... squabble with bean-counters over costs

What does the space program do now ?
... look for a big new problem (Mars), rinse, repeat

Because it strikes me as, in order to film a commercial, toyota interrupting the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln.
It is a funeral procession, a funeral for the manned space program, which was one of the crowning achievements of the United States/science & technology/mankind, in the twentieth century.

Well put.

My mom just sent me this link in an e-mail. As she put it, "and you thought moving furniture was a hassle?"

http://framework.latimes.com/2012/10...ek-across-l-a/

that was super cool, please pass on my thanks to your mom.

Have not had a chance to visit iotd for ages, and saw this header. Oh how disappointing! I thought it was going to be about my favourite TV detective, old grumpy-bums Inspector Morse...

Hiya!

How've ya been, SandyPoss?

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Originally Posted by ZenGum Hiya! How've ya been, SandyPoss?

sandy...let us know how that goes! Is there any way to view the contest/entrants?

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Originally Posted by sandypossum So what's new over in SA?

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Originally Posted by infinite monkey Is there any way to view the contest/entrants?

Don't think there's a way to view the contestants. Tried to find them too but I can't even see mention of the comp on the website. I get their hard copy monthly magazine as well and it was advertised in there. I shall most certainly let you know if I have any luck. I always record the show, so if it ends up on the telly I will, um, ask someone who can do that sort of thing to turn my HDD recording into something that can be posted.

As for YOU Spuck, who needs that foreign elctrosity stuff? Here in Australia's dairy belt we have cows on treadmills running our interwebs.

After a truly crap month, I thought I'd come back to the Cellar and even post a few responses on different and I have to say that it's been a bit like stepping back into a pub where I know a lot of the locals. It would be a hoot to actually meet some of the other Aussie Cellarites one day, or even visiting-from-yonder Cellarites. Do we have a thread for anything like that?

Guess we need a giant video chat room.

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Originally Posted by SPUCK Guess we need a giant video chat room.

Bloody third world power and information systems, would have been something to address if we ever needed an economic stimulus.

That was my big complaint during the stimulus. Only "shovel ready" projects were being done. I wanted some infrastructure work to be done. It would have delayed the stimulus impact by a year or more, but it would have been more useful that repainting the stop lines at all the nation's intersections.

CoughNationalBroadbandNetworkCough.

Shhh. Enough politics on this board already.

Ohh, look, shiny object!

The Australian Govt has this thing called the "Broadband Guarantee" which supposedly ensures that we in the sticks can all get an equivalent service to our urban comrades. In reality it is the equivalent of the worst sort of broadband service, at the absolute standard price. So none of that competitive pricing stuff. Until we got off the satellite dish we were paying $50 a month for 1GB, and it was not exactly fast.

On the other hand, I can see that a lot of public services just aren't feasible in Australia. We have a very, very large area with most of the population in just a few small areas of that. The majority of the country is sparsely populated, so having good public transport, roads, broadband, even mobile phone coverage is economically and logistically impractical. On the other hand, the important things, like medical service and education have always been pretty good no matter where you are. We have good rural schools, good rural hospitals and every small town has a football field (of course!) which doubles as a helipad for medical flights to a specialist city hospital. And in the more remote areas we have the Flying Doctors, and the School of the Air has been going for almost a century.

Fast, cheap interwebs would be lovely, but any interwebs is good.

Our phone company/ISP is up for sale so they're pretending to be profitable by not doing any service work. We had spotty internet and no phone for 5 days last month.