"Endeavour"

One of the exhibits we saw at the California Science Center yesterday was the Space Shuttle "Endeavour" which was recently added to the collection at the Center.  The shuttle is a spectacular flying machine, and it is huge beyond belief!  You can see that it dwarfs the people underneath.  Officially the "shuttle" consists of the orbiter, which this is, and the main fuel tank, and the solid rocket boosters.

This is one of the three engines on the back of the shuttle.  It was made by Rocketdyne.  The shuttle was made by North American Aviation, with some components made by other manufacturers like Boeing.

This is a view looking up from under the front of the shuttle.  What you can see are a whole bunch of black high-temperature reusable surface insulation tiles, used on the orbiter underside, to protect the orbiter from the heat of reentry. These are made of coated Silica ceramics.  Interesting that each tile has a number marked on it to keep track of where the tiles belong on the fuselage. The tiles are fastened onto the aluminum skin of the orbiter with, believe it or not, silicone adhesive, like you caulk your bathroom tub with!

Ok so here is what was REALLY interesting about our visit to the shuttle. This guy!  His name is "Art" and he is a volunteer at the Endeavour exhibit.  He formerly worked as an engineer for Rocketdyne and worked on the engines for the shuttle.  When we walked in he asked if we had any questions, and we started asking, and he knew ALL the answers about everything.  And here is one other really cool thing - I was asking a lot of questions, and he turned to Kathy and Liz and Amy and asked if THEY had any questions, which they did!  I loved that he was sensitive to women wanting to know about this machine.  I have to say, I have seen other orbiters in other museums, but this was the absolutely best experience because of Art's encyclopedic knowledge of the Shuttle.  He made our day! Please be sure to click on each photo, especially the first one, to see everything in more detail.