Science

Space shuttle cruises down streets of Los Angeles (pictures)

The space shuttle Endeavour is an amazing, incongruous sight, as it rolls past donut shops and liquor stores on its way to the California Science Center.

Edward Moyer

Edward Moyer is a senior editor at CNET and a many-year veteran of the writing and editing world. He enjoys taking sentences apart and putting them back together. He also likes making them from scratch. ¶ For nearly a quarter of a century, he's edited and written stories about various aspects of the technology world, from the US National Security Agency's controversial spying techniques to historic NASA space missions to 3D-printed works of fine art. Before that, he wrote about movies, musicians, artists and subcultures.

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Edward Moyer

Oct. 13, 2012 4:07 p.m. PT

1 of 7 NASA/Carla Cioffi

Shuttle Xing

Zipping to the International Space Station and back was one thing, but navigating the streets of Los Angeles is something else altogether, the Space Shuttle Endeavour is discovering.

The historic craft left Los Angeles International Airport on the back of a remote-controlled 160-wheel carrier before dawn Friday, according to a report from the Associated Press, to begin a 12-mile mission along the L.A. streets to the California Science Center near downtown. That's where it will spend its retirement. As of this writing, on Saturday at about 4:10, it's still inching along at 2 miles per hour, and should reach the center a little later today.

NASA posted a bevy of photos (we've grabbed a few of the best ones for this gallery), and other shuttle fans are following the action and posting photos on Twitter, via the hashtag #spottheshuttle.

The California Science Center is charting Endeavour's progress via Twitter too. And it also has a live-stream of the journey.