Shuttle Endeavour takes its last ride in the air

LOS ANGELES?? The space shuttle Endeavour rose into the air for the last time on Friday ? not rocketing into space, but taking a piggyback ride over California landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hollywood sign.

Endeavour, strapped atop a 747 jumbo jet, took off from Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert for a four-hour-plus sightseeing flight, leading up to a landing at Los Angeles International Airport. It's the shuttle's last aerial hurrah before it spends its retirement years as a museum piece.

About 400 trees had to be cleared along the 12-mile (20-kilometer) route to make room for its trek from LAX, a move that has riled some residents in affected neighborhoods. Museum officials have pledged to replant double the number of chopped trees.

1. Space news from NBCNews.com

   1. See this year's top shots in astronomy

      Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: Feast your eyes on the Whirlpool Galaxy, an icy starscape and other celestial wonders from the 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

   2. 'Tis the season for northern lights
   3. What it's like to fly a plane carrying shuttle
   4. 'Super Earth' a top contender to host life

"We're so excited to be welcoming Endeavour home in grand style with these flyovers," said Jeffrey Rudolph, president of the California Science Center, where the shuttle will go on permanent display.

Because Endeavour will buzz by some of the Golden State's most iconic sights, law enforcement and transportation authorities warned motorists not to "gawk and drive."

"We want people to take in this majestic show," Los Angeles police Cmdr. Scott Kroeber said earlier this week. "But if you're driving, please drive and don't try to take in the show simultaneously."

Extra officers will be on duty along the freeways near LAX to make sure traffic flows smoothly as the shuttle zooms overhead.

Some Southern Californians staked out their viewing spots hours in advance.

"I?m crazy," said Claudia Mohler, who arrived on a hill in El Segundo overlooking an LAX runway at about 4 a.m. PT Friday. "I had to be here. This is part of history."

Where to look, and when
The show got started at 8:17 a.m. PT (11:17 a.m. ET) with takeoff from Edwards. That was an hour later than originally planned. NASA said the departure was delayed "to increase the probability that fog over the San Francisco area will dissipate before the flyover."

The shuttle-jet combo flew over Palmdale, Lancaster, Rosamond and Mojave before heading north. There was a low-altitude pass over Sacramento, the Golden State's capital city, and then it was off to the San Francisco Bay Area.

NASA said the good viewing spots included the Bay Area Discovery Museum, the Chabot Space and Science Center, the Exploratorium, the Lawrence Hall of Science and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Flyovers were also planned for NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley, and for Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Endeavour was expected to head back to Los Angeles around 11:30 a.m. PT.

"Watch for flyovers of Endeavour passing regional landmarks such as its future home at the California Science Center, Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, Disneyland, The Getty Center, Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles City Hall, the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, Malibu Beach, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the Queen Mary, Universal Studios and Venice Beach, among others," NASA said in a statement Thursday.

Landing is set for about 12:45 p.m. PT at LAX, with a welcome ceremony to follow. NASA TV is planning video coverage of the sightseeing highlights.

Sentimental journey
The LAX landing will mark the end of a three-day, cross-country flight that tugged on the emotions of those involved in the shuttle program. Endeavour and its carrier jet left NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, made low passes over the space agency's facilities in Mississippi and Louisiana, and spent the night at Houston's Ellington Field, near the home of Mission Control at Johnson Space Center.

On Thursday, Endeavour resumed its westward flight and made a special pass over Tucson, Ariz., to honor its last commander, Mark Kelly, and his wife, former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords, who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, was "hooting and hollering" as Endeavour looped around her hometown, according to her former aide C.J. Karamargin.

"That's my spaceship," Kelly said proudly.

Thursday afternoon's touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base brought Endeavour full circle: NASA's shuttle fleet, which retired last year after three decades of flight, was assembled in Palmdale near Edwards. The military outpost, 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Los Angeles, served as the original shuttle landing strip and remained a backup site in case of stormy weather in Florida.

Past and future
The youngest shuttle, Endeavour replaced Challenger, which blew up during liftoff in 1986. NASA lost another shuttle, Columbia, in 2003 when it disintegrated during re-entry. Fourteen astronauts were killed in those two tragedies.

During 25 missions, Endeavour spent 299 days in space and orbited Earth nearly 4,700 times, racking up 123 million miles (198 million kilometers).

On its maiden flight in 1992, a trio of spacewalking astronauts grabbed a stranded communications satellite in for repair. It also flew the first repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to fix a faulty mirror. But most of its flights ferried cargo and equipment to the International Space Station, which is near completion.

Under White House orders to explore beyond low-Earth orbit, NASA is hitching rides on Russian rockets to the orbiting laboratory until private companies can provide regular service.

Endeavour is the second of the three remaining space shuttles to head to its retirement home. In April, Discovery arrived at the Smithsonian Institution's hangar in Virginia. Atlantis, which closed out the shuttle program, will stay in Florida where it will be towed a short distance to the Kennedy Space Center's visitor center in the fall.

The prototype shuttle Enterprise, which was used in aerodynamic glide tests but never flew in space, was moved out of the Smithsonian to make room for Discovery and transported to New York's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

Endeavour will remain at an airport hangar for several weeks as crews ready the shuttle for its own road trip. Unlike Atlantis, it will creep through city streets to the California Science Center near downtown.

This report includes information from The Associated Press, Reuters, Space.com and NBC Los Angeles.

? 2012 msnbc.com

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49118256/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Clinton speech Michael Strahan Griselda Blanco Michelle Obama Speech eva longoria Rihanna wiz khalifa