EXPOSITION PARK, LOS ANGELES (KABC) — We’re getting a look inside what could soon become one of L.A.’s most popular attractions. The California Science Center is showing off some of the artifacts inside its new expansion.
For the first time, it’s starting to look less like a construction site and more like a full-scale museum.
At the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, the very first artifacts are now in place, with more to come on humans and robots in space, and the rockets that get them there.
On Tuesday, several pieces made their debut, including a Rocket Lab Electron Rocket and part of a 12-foot-wide shuttle booster segment that visitors can walk through. They’re not just models, but real equipment that has been on missions.
The center will also be home to NASA’s final space shuttle orbiter, built in Southern California and flown on 25 missions.
“When NASA announced they were retiring the shuttles, we went for one, and we got Endeavour, and we were looking to build this ever since,” said Jeff Rudolph, the president and CEO of the California Science Center.
When Endeavour arrived in 2012, it turned into a city-wide parade. It was a 12-mile, 68-hour trek through neighborhoods packed with people who came to watch history roll by.
Then, in 2016, NASA sent its last remaining shuttle fuel tank. That, too, became a 19-hour street parade, and it’s the reason L.A. Now has the only complete, authentic shuttle stack in the world.
There are about five weeks left of construction, but in the new year, the California Science Center will announce the grand opening date.
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