Downey space shuttle model moves to site near future home

At slower than a walking pace, the prototype that helped launch America’s space shuttle program paraded down Downey streets Thursday morning on its way to a temporary housing location in preparation for a move to its finally home.

Dozens of students who skipped classes waved and snapped selfies near the partially-covered wood and plastic model. The visible rear engine nozzles garnered gasps and pointing among a few hundred residents who sat in folding chairs along the sidewalk to watch the procession.

The 122-foot-long-by-35-foot-tall space shuttle mock-up, named the “Inspiration,” was transported via big rigs in multiple parts 0.3 miles along Bellflower Boulevard from a city maintenance yard to a temporary housing location. The prototype will eventually be the centerpiece of a new space shuttle museum at the expanded Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey.

The space center will be part of a 12.8-acre parcel where construction crews plan to complete in early 2026 the Downey Space Shuttle Exhibit and Education Building to serve as a larger science exhibit and educational complex. Officials from the city and the Columbia Memorial hope the space shuttle will continue to draw attention and lead to increased visitors.

“The next time you see the moon or you see pictures of man landing on the moon, I want you to think about Downey,” Mayor Mario Trujillo said at a ceremony on Thursday. “This is where it all happened.”

Movers transport pieces of the Space Shuttle Inspiration, a full-scale mock-up of a space shuttle, along Bellflower Boulevard.

The shuttle mock-up’s history with Downey spans decades.

North American Rockwell International, later known as Rockwell International and now a part of Boeing, built the prototype in 1972 at its Downey facility. The space shuttle became the world’s first reusable winged orbiting spaceship.

In total, 12,000 workers developed and manufactured the shuttle at the program’s peak in a sprawling campus that included 120 acres and 40 buildings.

Between April 12, 1981, through July, 21 2011, NASA fleets flew 135 space shuttle missions and helped build the International Space Station.

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1. Gilbert Bevenflorez III, 6, plays with a small scale model of the space shuttle Discovery as movers transport pieces of the Space Shuttle Inspiration, a full-scale mock-up of a space shuttle along Bellflower Blvd. Bevenflorez’ grandfather worked on the shuttle program in the 1970s. 2. A lineman, above, keeps a eye on power lines removed temporarily for the transport of the Space Shuttle Inspiration, a full-scale mock-up of a space shuttle along Bellflower Blvd.

One of those shuttles — Endeavour — was lifted into place in January into the middle of its future home, Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at Exposition Park.

Boeing closed the Downey facility in 1999, and the mock-up bounced around storage facilities for more than 20 years.

In 2009, Downey opened its Columbia Memorial Space Center on the site of the city’s former NASA test facility.

The two-story center is roughly 20,000 square feet and features a robotics and computer lab and interactive space exhibits. The center draws about 100,000 visits annually.

North American Rockwell International, later known as Rockwell International and now a part of Boeing, built the prototype in 1972 at its Downey facility.

The Downey Space Shuttle Exhibit and Education Building would add a new two-story 29,000-square foot space shuttle museum, an event courtyard, a STEM building and courtyard, a children’s outdoor classroom, a pavilion, lawn and other amenities to the complex.

Benjamin Dickow, space center president and executive director, said the center’s expansion represents an opportunity to change the way science and engineering is taught.

“This project is going to allow us to keep innovating,” Dickow said. “In the new building we’ll be able to bring speakers and experts and practitioners and teachers together to innovate how STEM should be done for the 21st Century.”