Well, that was embarrassing!

Well that was embarrassing!

That's the message Mozilla prints on my computer screen whenever their Firefox internet browser makes a mistake loading a web page. Likewise, I have to own up to a gross error I made in the last blog posting. I said that Millie and I happened upon a work crew who just mounted the space shuttle “Inspiration” onto an elevated mount at the ATX center here at the Space center. That was not right in several ways. They were actually preparing to remove it from it's perch at ATX.

On Sunday morning there were a lot of people gathered on the pier here at the campground so we wandered over to see what was happening. On the causeway about a mile up the Indian River sat the shuttle, workers were in the process of loading it onto a barge.

There was much speculation about where the shuttle was being moved to. I heard it was going across the river to the Visitors center and later was told it was being barged to New Orleans. Deciding I wanted to get my facts straight before posting this correction I researched online.

Low and behold I discovered it was never an operational shuttle, the full size mock up once held a 72 seat movie theater. On Saturday it was moved across the river to Merritt Island were it will be refurbished and eventually tour the coastal USA on a barge, bringing the space shuttle experience to people who may never have the opportunity to come to the space center.

Loading the "shuttle" onto a barge

Interesting but useless shuttle mock up facts: During my research I discovered there are at least four full size shuttle mock ups.

There is another “Inspiration” in California, it was built in1972 by North American Rockwell to promote the company's bid to build the space shuttle fleet. As of March 2014 this “Inspiration” was sitting in a storage yard in Downey, California.

The “America” was a space flight simulator at the Six Flags amusement park in Illinois. The ride closed in 2007 and was removed in 2009, current whereabouts unknown to this writer.

The “Independence” was formally known as the “Explorer” and was located at the Kennedy Space center from 1993 until 2012 when it was relocated to the Houston Texas Space Center.