Yes, it's called the Smithsonian.
Truly an awesome place and it's all free. Of course donations are accepted.
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
It was a special low altitude flyby of the National Mall prior to it being delivered to the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
Space shuttle Discovery lands in Washington DC - Technology & science - Space - Space.com - msnbc.com
Spot the shuttle: How to see Discovery on final flight to Smithsonian | collectSPACE
Discovery flies over the D.C. area - The Washington Post
I recall a similar reaction in the early 1980's (1983?) when one of the shuttles (atop the 747 ferry aircraft) was on the ground for public viewing at Dulles airport. The crowds were kept about 100 yards away, but it was certainly as close as any of us mere mortals could ever hope to get to a shuttle.
In November 1982 I had the privilege to view a launch of the space shuttle "Columbia" (STS-5, as I recall) from the VIP viewing area - over a mile from the launch pad, but a lot closer than the general public could get.
My employer's satellite was part of the payload for that mission, and they allowed employees to use their passes to the VIP area. (We had to pay our own way, and take vacation time - I think there was a raffle drawing because more folks wanted to go than they had passes, but my family & I were among the lucky ones.)
So at dawn that morning there were at least 500 people shivering as we sat in portable bleachers in a swamp in Florida. Most had awakened around 3:00 AM, or simply stayed up all night, to board busses that were escorted to the location. As I recall, we had to be at the location well before the scheduled launch time because Range Safety closed off a huge area, and access roads, at a certain point in the countdown.
But everybody in that viewing area had some tangible connection to the spacecraft. Besides the group from my company, some folks worked for the contractors who built the shuttle, or the payloads it carried, or made the engines, or assembled the main systems, or the Canadians who supplied the robot arm, or distant relatives of the crew (not eligible for the family observation area), etc, etc. This was the first shuttle mission to carry commercial payloads, and NASA was making a big deal about getting the private sector more involved in the space program.
When the count hit "20", everybody stood - almost like we were some precision drill team or marching band under a director. I thought those rickety bleachers were going to collapse! I've NEVER been part of any crowd, even at an athletic event, that moved with a single mind like that. Like I said - everybody present had a personal connection to that spacecraft. Then the cheering - which was drowned out (even at that distance) when the engines moved to full throttle.
And in a couple of minutes it was all over. The spacecraft out of sight, with the vapor trails dissipating in the rising sunlight. Comprehending a little of what we had just experienced, quite a few folks started conversations with others around them, discovering the underlying connections and exchanging stories. I wish there had been more opportunity for this, but most of us had to be back on the buses, and returned to wherever we were staying, shortly after the launch.
That event remains as one of the most memorable of my lifetime. Not quite like getting married, holding my kids at birth (or my father at death), but certainly on par with my college graduation almost ten years previous - where, by the way, astronaut Deke Slayton had been the commencement speaker. After the Challenger accident I heard that NASA discontinued use of that viewing area so I don't know how many people ever had that experience. But if you ever have the opportunity to observe anything like that shuttle launch first-hand, definitely make an effort to be there.
Dale
In November 1982 I had the privilege to view a launch of the space shuttle "Columbia" (STS-5, as I recall) from the VIP viewing area - over a mile from the launch pad, but a lot closer than the general public could get.
My employer's satellite was part of the payload for that mission, and they allowed employees to use their passes to the VIP area. (We had to pay our own way, and take vacation time - I think there was a raffle drawing because more folks wanted to go than they had passes, but my family & I were among the lucky ones.)
So at dawn that morning there were at least 500 people shivering as we sat in portable bleachers in a swamp in Florida. Most had awakened around 3:00 AM, or simply stayed up all night, to board busses that were escorted to the location. As I recall, we had to be at the location well before the scheduled launch time because Range Safety closed off a huge area, and access roads, at a certain point in the countdown.
But everybody in that viewing area had some tangible connection to the spacecraft. Besides the group from my company, some folks worked for the contractors who built the shuttle, or the payloads it carried, or made the engines, or assembled the main systems, or the Canadians who supplied the robot arm, or distant relatives of the crew (not eligible for the family observation area), etc, etc. This was the first shuttle mission to carry commercial payloads, and NASA was making a big deal about getting the private sector more involved in the space program.
When the count hit "20", everybody stood - almost like we were some precision drill team or marching band under a director. I thought those rickety bleachers were going to collapse! I've NEVER been part of any crowd, even at an athletic event, that moved with a single mind like that. Like I said - everybody present had a personal connection to that spacecraft. Then the cheering - which was drowned out (even at that distance) when the engines moved to full throttle.
And in a couple of minutes it was all over. The spacecraft out of sight, with the vapor trails dissipating in the rising sunlight. Comprehending a little of what we had just experienced, quite a few folks started conversations with others around them, discovering the underlying connections and exchanging stories. I wish there had been more opportunity for this, but most of us had to be back on the buses, and returned to wherever we were staying, shortly after the launch.
That event remains as one of the most memorable of my lifetime. Not quite like getting married, holding my kids at birth (or my father at death), but certainly on par with my college graduation almost ten years previous - where, by the way, astronaut Deke Slayton had been the commencement speaker. After the Challenger accident I heard that NASA discontinued use of that viewing area so I don't know how many people ever had that experience. But if you ever have the opportunity to observe anything like that shuttle launch first-hand, definitely make an effort to be there.
Dale
There are two events permanently etched into my brain. Even after the passage of considerable time the stupid details remain. The first was the assasination of president Kennedy nearly 50 years ago. We had just got into a VW microbus in Coconut Grove Florida, turned on the radio for out daily Beatles fix, but there was no music......
The second was walking across the parking lot of the Motorola plant where I work at lunch remembering how cold it was. I remembered that the Challenger was scheduled to launch that day, but the launches are almost never on time. I looked north to see about ten seconds of the flight, and then the explosion. The cloud with the two trails made by the SRB's hung there for nearly an hour.......
The shuttle landings were usually at the cape unless the weather was bad. They are generally not visible from any place that normal people are allowed to go. The alternate landing site is in California with the shuttle ferried back to Florida on the back of the special 747. There have been several pictures taken of the pigyback flights from the mainland coast, but none that were this close.
There were a bunch of people from the Motorola ham radio club that got to watch a launch from the special viewing site, and two guys got to go inside a shuttle prior to launch (to mount the antenna) as part of the shuttle amateur radio program. A few of the astronauts were ham radio operators and they often carried a Motorola two way radio on shuttle flights. The public frequencies are quite crowdwd and only stations with enough power to override everyone else could get through. Since we built the equipment, we knew all the secret frequencies. You could talk to an astronaut on board the space shuttle with a 5 watt walkie talkie!
The MIR space station had ham radio, and so does the ISS. In fact the ISS has a cross band repeater in the sky!
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