Maybe I will get to see a Space Shuttle up close after all. If I ever make it to a Space Museum. At least there's that...

Don

End of the Space Shuttle Ferry Era - Final Flights | Video

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6qVPsew3dFA

Space shuttle Discovery placed atop jumbo jet for its last ride

Orbiter set for this week's transfer from Florida to Smithsonian in Virginia

Kim Shiflett / AP

Workers attach the space shuttle Discovery to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft in the Mate-Demate Device at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday. Discovery will be transported to the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia on Tuesday.

By Robert Z. Pearlman Editor, CollectSpace

NASA mounted the space shuttle Discovery on a jumbo jet on Sunday in preparation for the retired orbiter's delivery to the Smithsonian. The paired air- and spacecraft are expected to fly out of Florida for Virginia on Tuesday morning, weather permitting.
Discovery's mating to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, or SCA, NASA's modified Boeing 747 jetliner, came a day later than the space agency had planned. On Saturday, wind gusts at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility set the 167,000-pound (75,300-kilogram) Discovery swaying under its lift sling, posing a risk that it could impact the Mate-Demate Device, the gantrylike steel structure used to hoist the shuttle onto the jetliner.
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