{"id":142590,"date":"2025-11-20T00:24:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T00:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/142590\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T00:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T00:24:13","slug":"peek-inside-the-california-science-centers-rocket-filled-space-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/142590\/","title":{"rendered":"Peek inside the California Science Center\u2019s rocket-filled space expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my biggest L.A. regrets? Letting the potential for traffic scare me away from seeing Space Shuttle\u00a0Endeavour paraded across the city\u2019s surface streets.\u00a0So in the\u00a013 years since, I\u2019ve tried to\u00a0steep myself in as\u00a0many space-centric\u00a0happenings as possible\u2014and I have to say, this latest\u00a0development should have Angelenos\u00a0very excited.<\/p>\n

As the California Science Center<\/a> nears the completion of construction on the\u00a0Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center\u2014where you\u2019ll be able to see Endeavour in a\u00a0vertical, ready-to-launch position<\/a>\u2014the Exposition Park institution has begun to install the 100 artifacts that\u2019ll fill its air and space museum expansion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Specifically, on Tuesday I was invited for a sneak peek of the first three pieces to be\u00a0placed in the\u00a0still-in-progress Kent Kresa Space Gallery: a 59-foot-tall Electron launch vehicle from Rocket Lab, a nearly-complete space shuttle main engine and a solid rocket booster segment\u2014that\u2019s been to space and back\u2014that visitors will be able to walk through. (Oh, and if you\u2019re wondering\u00a0when? Stay tuned: The California Science Center says that next year it\u2019ll announce an opening date.)<\/p>\n

\"Kent
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutKent Kresa Space Gallery at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center <\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been by the museum lately, you\u2019ve probably seen the metallic exterior that\u2019s enveloped\u00a0Endeavour, specifically the pinnacle-like Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery that houses the 20-story display. But that\u2019s only part of the museum expansion: On the western side of the building you\u2019ll encounter planes in the Korean Air Aviation Gallery and human spacecraft, robots, telescopes and rockets inside the\u00a0Kent Kresa Space Gallery. As\u00a0Kenneth Phillips, the museum\u2019s aerospace programs curator puts it, \u201cIt\u2019s the gallery that\u2019s going to show people why we explore the universe in the way that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Samuel
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out <\/p>\n

Once inside the three-floor Kent Kresa Space Gallery (named after the major museum donor and former chairman and CEO of Northrop Grumman) the first thing I encountered was the Rocket Labs Electron rocket. Second only to SpaceX in private launches<\/a>, the Long Beach company has\u00a0sent these orbital rockets loaded with satellites into space over 70 times\u2014though this particular\u00a0flight-ready model has never left Earth. A central staircase in the gallery winds around the vehicle, so visitors will be able to scope it out from up close along all three levels (each floor will focus on a different subject area, including human flight, rocket science and\u00a0robotic spacecraft exploration and telescopes).<\/p>\n

\"Rocket
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutRocket Lab Electron rocket at the Kent Kresa Space Gallery <\/p>\n

\"Space
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutSpace Shuttle main engine at the Kent Kresa Space Gallery <\/p>\n

Up on the rocket-filled third floor, that\u2019s where you\u2019ll also find a 95% complete main engine from the Space Shuttle program. (You know the three conical engines that sit toward the tail of the shuttle? That\u2019s what you\u2019re looking at here.) You can get remarkably close to the engine and gawk at the dizzying array of tubes, pumps and valves attached to it.<\/p>\n

\"Solid
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutSolid rocket booster segment at the Kent Kresa Space Gallery <\/p>\n

\"Solid
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutSolid rocket booster segment at the Kent Kresa Space Gallery <\/p>\n

I think the most awe-inspiring artifact to see here, though, is a cutaway segment of a solid rocket booster\u2014an assembly of four\u00a0previously-flown pieces that have collectively helped propel more than 20 Space Shuttle missions into low Earth orbit. At 12 feet in diameter (nearly the height of DTLA\u2019s 2nd Street Tunnel, to provide a comparison), the booster made me feel downright diminutive. Though I was only able to walk through a gap between the segments, the completed exhibit will allow visitors to walk inside and through the roughly 30-foot slice\u2014a mere fifth of the length of the full 149-foot-tall boosters that you\u2019ll find flanking\u00a0Endeavour. I stood at the\u00a0base of those towering boosters in the middle of the museum\u2019s \u201cGo for Stack\u201d process in the fall of 2023<\/a>, but I found them so monumental\u00a0that it was difficult to truly comprehend the scale. But being able to place yourself literally inside of this booster inside the Kent Kresa Space Gallery really cements the colossal scope of the shuttle-propelling boosters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of my biggest L.A. regrets? Letting the potential for traffic scare me away from seeing Space Shuttle\u00a0Endeavour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17797,85,46,34023,125,867],"class_list":{"0":"post-142590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-categories-things-to-do","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-news-city-life","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}