Columbia Memorial Space Center Field Trip
Today was a day that could have only happened in Downey. Rotary met at the Columbia Space Center and had a delicious box lunch in the presence of a host of space-themed exhibits — including two test Apollo spacecraft — and a Challenger Learning Center.
And later we were treated by Center Manager Christine Pearce to a tour of the Space Museum, starting with a visit to the mock-up of the space shuttle that is currently housed in a huge tent outside the Columbia Memorial Space Center, the city-owned, hands-on educational facility, which opened in 2010 on the same historic site where moon-bound capsules were made. When the city can get $3 million dollars it will build a new building around the shuttle craft as a prime exhibit.
The following history of our life-sized mock-up is taken from collectspace.com:
The mostly-wood-and-plastic model was created by North American Rockwell (then Boeing) as part of the company's bid to build the space shuttle for NASA. After winning the contract, the company kept the 122 foot-long by 35 foot-tall (37 by 11 meter) mockup at their Downey assembly facility where it served as a fit-check tool for instruments and payloads being built for the real orbiters.
The one-wing model — its left wing and part of its vertical stabilizer, or tail, was removed after its debut — remained in Rockwell's design and engineering room for more than 30 years, practically the same amount of time as the real shuttles flew. The mockup doubled as a public relations and visual aid during congressional and astronaut visits. Shown below.
It was only after the Downey plant was closed in 1999 that it became necessary to move the shuttle into storage. The assembly facility was being converted into a movie studio and in the decade that the shuttle sat off to the side, partially disassembled and under sheets, the fleet it helped give birth to flew out its final missions and NASA's shuttle program came to its end.
Museums jockeyed to display the shuttle simulators and replicas as well. The assembly facility was being converted into a movie studio and the mockup was in the way.
But it wasn't a museum's interest that drove the original space shuttle mockup into the open — that credit goes to a shopping center.
When Industrial Realty Group (IRG) acquired the 77 acres that comprised the former Downey aerospace design and manufacturing complex, its contract required that it keep the space shuttle mockup on site. But with the Tierra Luna Marketplace, a new $500 million retail development, set to go forward on the spot, IRG offered to pay the city to move the shuttle elsewhere. Downey city council voted to accept the developer's offer, setting in motion a plan to relocate the mockup. Fortunately, a nearby location presented an appropriate, if perhaps temporary, area to place the shuttle model on public display.
The mockup's move cost the city $57,000 more than IRG's $100,000 payment — a wall needed to be removed just to extract it out of its current building — but is worth the investment, Downey's mayor Roger Brossmer told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
"This is the original shuttle, and we think it's a national treasure," Mayor Brossmer said. "We would like to see people be able to get in it, touch it. See what it's like. We are very excited."
Walking into the tent, one is dwarfed by the immense engines in the rear. Part of the center covering has been cut away to get the shuttle into the space available. At present it looks like two big white box cars in the middle, but once on permanent display we will see the aerodynamic shape.
To join the Museum for a year costs only $80, with unlimited visits. It is located at 12400 Columbia Way, formerly Clark Avenue, in Downey.
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