miamiair wrote:I don't mind California getting a shuttle, but New York? Houston should have gotten one before New York did.
Exactly.
To be honest, I don't understand why people say LA shouldn't have one. Between the orbiters being built here and landing here on many missions, TONS of aerospace industry here (which pumped a lot of parts and such into the program, I'm sure).
Thanks for the link, Suresh - I had totally forgotten about the Downey facility.
AndesSMF wrote:Though what is sadder to me is to note that it wasn't that long ago that Seattle and Toulouse took a backseat to the LA area in aerospace till the early 90s.
I'm not sure that's entirely true. I mean, Seattle has BCA, and Toulouse has Airbus, but SoCal still has the Air Force (Edwards, Vandenberg, etc.), NASA, the Navy (gigantic presence down in San Diego), a HUGE Northrop contingent, Boeing Satellite Systems and others, Lockheed Skunkworks and others, Raytheon, SpaceX, Aerospace Corporation, Sea Launch, and hundreds if not thousands of lesser-known companies that supply aerospace components, from thousands of employees down to a 10-person machine shop. You've probably never heard of the company I work for, but we supply pretty important components for aerospace companies, including NASA.
With all that said, yes, LA is not a hotbed of final assembly anymore (the C-17 is the only one I can think of), but in terms of aerospace, I can't drive more than a half mile around here without seeing a company related to it.
