Shuttle Fever

At 12:40 p.m. today, it flew over our next door neighbor's house and we had a clear view of the left side of it  from our balcony! 

The shuttle Endeavor's last flight is generating a tremendous amount of excitement here in Southern California.  Traffic is piled up, a street in El Segundo that overlooks LAX has been closed to traffic; the 405 on either side of LAX is jammed...  all to see a shuttle and a 747 doing it doggy style.

I am, by nature, a worrier.  Logic tells me that since the shuttle hasn't fallen off of the 747 on the long journey from Florida to here, it probably won't.

But what if it did over almost any one of the "tour points" out here -- Disneyland, JPL Labs (boom!  Scientists wiped out) the Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach?  If it crashed by the Hollywood sign, not so much.  It's mainly cleared land there anyhow and halfway up a short mountain. 

Worst case scenario:   The approach to LAX flies directly over the ghet-to.  What if some wag down below decides it would be fun to laser dot the 747's pilot's eyes?  Or a terrorist fires off a ground-to-air missile?  And it connects?

I'm sure the people behind the Last Tour have considered all such disastrous events, but.. luck is not always with the good guys.

On an even more morbid note, this final pass over various places reminds me of funerals where the route from the church/mortuary to the cemetery makes a final tour past the deceased's work place or favorite bar.

Richie can sit out on our balcony for as long as he wants to see the approach into LAX.  Me?  I'll be under the bed -- with the cats.