Visiting Space Shuttle Endeavor at the L.A. Science Museum

We went this past weekend. I figured some of you who can’t make it to Los Angeles might like to see some pics.

It costs $2 to see – a token amount that basically just allows them to count how many people go in at one time, and ensure that people who are there want to be there (Hall H at Comic-Con, you should try this). What you notice most, especially if like me you grew up with toys of the Columbia and the James Bond Moonraker (they were the same toy with different stickers), is the sheer size of this thing – it’s bigger than you think.

Here’s the Shuttle toilet, complete with a video that describes very precisely how women need to put the tube right up against the urethra, but men must absolutely not go fully deep.

Here are bits of various Mission Controls over the years, all of which would probably now fit in your phone, tech-wise.

Here’s an attempt to get the whole thing in one picture, which is tough.

Up close you can see each individual heat tile.

Below you see the lab that’s in the payload bay. If they need to do experiments in space, they pressurize it and walk through a sealed tunnel from the cockpit to the lab.

As I’m part of the vast left-wing conspiracy to propagate Darwinism, I had to buy this bit of Geek Apparel of the Week:

‘Murca!