I took my kids to see Endeavour in LA this weekend. The California Science Center itself was great, with plenty of space relics (including Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules/command modules) and lots of other stuff, too. But Endeavour was just...incredible. Those main engines are BIG! And to get to see an actual piece of history like that...incredible again. Has anyone else been there yet? Or to the other shuttles? My new goal is to take the kids to visit each of them at some point. I've always known what a large and complicated machine the shuttle was, but seeing it up close gave me a real appreciation for the men and women who rode on it.
I was watching on the internets as they moved Endeavour from LAX to the museum, but haven't been down yet to see the exhibit. I'm pretty sure a couple of TrekBBS people have been there, though, and I know The Seeker posted pics a while back of Enterprise from his visit to the Intrepid Museum in NYC.
Many years ago I saw Columbia on the launch pad, actually the wing tips since the service structure was covering the cargo bay and the rest of the fuselage. Years earlier I saw a crate holding part of the launch vehicle for Apollo/Soyuz in the center bay of the Vehicle Assembly Building. They also had full scale models of the two spacecraft and docking adapter on display in there. The borders of the viewing area were marked with ordinary pale green painted metal office cubicle partitions.
I've been to the Endeavour in LA and the shuttle simulator at the Museum Of Flight in Seattle. They're both very impressive. The simulator gives out guided tours of the cockpit and living quarters on weekends, which unfortunately I didn't get to do, but they let you walk into the satellite bay area unescorted. The thing is huge.
Nice, When I went to Space Camp back in Highschool I got to see the Pathfinder. Not a "real" shuttle of course. But real enough for me. However, at the time they did tell us the SRB's were real ones that had been used. And that the ET was one that couldn't make the QC cut. Of course they had Sims and Zero-Gee chairs and all that good shit.