[dragnet2]

This space shuttle should have been placed at WPAFB or Houston. Flying the shuttle around California was a political photo op and an incredible waste of money.

No, Houston should have received the Enterprise which went to NY, of all places.

It might be a surprise to you, but the Shuttles were born in California, designed by America's top scientist and aerospace engineers in CA and assembled and tested in CA. If any state deserved one of these spacecraft, it would be California. This isn't even debatable.

BTW, the many millions of Californians who went out of their way just to see the Endeavour's final tour, would very much disagree with you regarding it being a waste of money. Considering California's role in the Space Shuttle program, the CA tour was most appropriate.

Endeavour is back home.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Is that the first shuttle to fly piggy back to California? I know a lot of them flew out of here.

[tanknetter]

No, Houston should have received the Enterprise which went to NY, of all places.

...

Endeavour is back home.

With only four shuttles available, someone deserving was going to lose out. IMHO Discovery is appropriately at the Smithsonian. Atlantis, as the ship that flew most of the USAF/NRO missions, should have gone to Wright-Pat/NMUSAF. Endeavour should have stayed at Kennedy and Enterprise, as the first-born of the fleet, the engineering prototype/test ship and the one used for the drop tests, to California. Although Atlantis going to Houston would have been fine too.

Enterprise going to NYC is a crime, imho. NASA violated their own competition standards to send here there (same thing with Endeavor to the place in CA she's going to). As much as I appreciate the Intrepid as a museum they don't meet the financial or facility standards for being the custodian of a shuttle. Being in a salt-water environment Enterprise WILL corrode and do so quickly. And they've already managed to rip part of one of her wingtips off barging her over from JFK (which they "fixed" with a couple cans of black spray paint).

The ONLY reason Enterprise is there is because NASA wanted to throw a bone to Chuck Schumer. Like I said, criminal.