Space Shuttle Inspiration (California) forwards fuselage
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In 1972, Rockwell North American built this mockup of the proposed Space Shuttle Orbiter to present to NASA. Once the contract was awarded, the mockup was used to finalize the dimensions and the layout of the orbiter and its components. The Inspiration got the Shuttle project started, and was the final step before construction of the first orbiter, the Enterprise.
Long abandoned inside a warehouse after the Downey plant closed in 1999, Inspiration was saved during the site's 2012 demolition, and placed temporarily in a tent next to the Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center on site. It went on public view for the first time ever, and was given the name Inspiration by Downey City Council.
In the foreground are some 1980s promotional materials from Rockwell that detail the then-current accomplishments of the Shuttle and its proposed future uses. A key plan was to use the Shuttle to construct, then service, Space Station Freedom. With the end of the Cold War, NASA scrapped plans for Freedom, instead teaming up with the Russians to have the Shuttle visit Mir, then using elements already built for Freedom and Mir 2, plus other new elements from the two countries plus Europe and Japan, to build the International Space Station.
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