Pompeii and Endeavour

<--- First official field trip with our new shirts (there were more people in our group, but we're the rock stars!) After much planning and a couple reschedules, our homeschool group was able to get a group together to go see the Pompeii exhibit while it was at the California Science Center (until Jan 11). At our last book report club, we had three kids do books on Pompeii and realized that a lot of us were studying ancient civilizations and this would be a fun trip for us – especially at a group rate. Along with the ticket, we also got admission to see the space shuttle Endeavour that had been retired in LA. It was a special field trip on a weekend so that some of the dads could come with us and enjoy the exhibits too. Pompeii – In preparation for the exhibit, our family watched the docu-drama from 2003. It prepared the kids for seeing the casts and understanding why all the artifacts were so cool to see. The exhibit was well put together, but I assume going to Pompeii would be way cooler. 😉 The casts of the people were definitely amazing (in a sad way).

Random – We spent a short amount of time in the regular part of the center. We will have to go back and see the other exhibits that are there on a normal basis. We saw a few mockups of space probes and other ships that people have sent into space and to planets. We also let the kids test out the hurricane simulator.

Endeavour – It was really fun to see the Endeavour with Nate. Nate was surprised by how sad he felt.  Not because the shuttle program was cancelled, the shuttles are old and needed to be retired.  122 million miles and look as good I think you will not, hmmm?  Even still, the original shuttles were built before most of us had CDs!  The challenges of keeping such a complex and safety critical system up to date and operating for more than 3 decades, and with such success, is just astounding!  But at some point its time to trade in and buy a newer model.  Enter the Dragon and Orion space capsules.  NASA is still very much interested in flying Astronauts to space, it isn’t out of that business.  They just made a responsible decision to retire the remaining shuttles and avoid risking repeats of Challenger and Columbia.  Most of the exhibit was about how they got the Endeavour from LAX to the science center.  What made Nate sad was to realize the finality of that decision.  It took tremendous effort and city cooperation to move Endeavour to this museum, and most likely it will NEVER move again, regardless of the fact that its otherwise a perfectly good spaceship.  Such sad irony.

Check out all photos here Pompeii first and Endeavor starts on page 3