Today is a big day for the museum campus as the Adler Planetarium learns whether or not it will be receiving one of the soon to be retired space shuttles. We posted about this story a couple of weeks ago and it seems like there is a good chance we could get one. The Trib has a good article summing up the competition, but what we found most interesting was the plan on how they would get the shuttle to the museum:
Update: So much for that. Chicago lost to Washington D.C., NYC, LA and Orlando. Above we said "it seems like there is a good chance we could get one". Apparently we're not very good at handicapping competitions to bring space shuttles to cities. Sorry.The shuttles will be delivered atop a Boeing 747 transporter. If the delivery were made to O'Hare International Airport, the problem would be how to get the shuttle to Adler's lakefront campus. So Adler has identified three other airports near Lake Michigan that have runways long enough for the plane to land, and from which the shuttle could be delivered to Adler aboard a barge, Knappenberger said.
NASA wants to deliver all four shuttles no later than September 2012, Knappenberger said. Adler would either store the shuttle in an airport hangar or build a temporary hangar at the old Meigs Field until completion of its permanent home, which would be built atop a parking lot next to the museum.
That would be a nice exhibit, and they could probably snag a few other NASA-type exhibits to go along with it.
ReplyDeleteThe Air and Space Museum in downtown DC is the best-attended museum in the world.
I'm an ex-slooper living in Northern Virginia now, and out here we have the Air and Space Museum extension just off of Dulles Airport. They have a space shuttle in there, but I'll tell ya... the best exhibit among many great exhibits there is the SR-71!
Regards sloopers.
Too bad for Chicago. Would have been a neat addition to the Museum Campus.
ReplyDeleteSloopin' is for losers.
ReplyDelete@ Anon 1:37pm. Thanks for joining us, d-bag.
ReplyDeleteWe weren't even close... Of Course NY, LA, DC, and MCO got it! (NY and LA because of the coastal bias, MCO for the proximity of the cape, and Dc, well that's a no brainer, HOU would have likely been the next in line for the same NASA proximity) I would have loved to have seen this happen, but I didn't really expect it.
ReplyDeletearen't the comments moderated? wtf sloopin
ReplyDeleteWe moderate, but only if we feel it's truly offensive.
ReplyDeleteFrankly we found @Anon 1:37 funny...laugh it off it doesn't really mean much to us
How is that Obama magic working out for you Chicago...
ReplyDelete