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Space Shuttle Endeavour Hoisted for Installation in Vertical Display at LA Museum

Space Shuttle Endeavour is lifted at the California Science Center, where it will be paired with its iconic orange external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters inside the soon-to-be-completed Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, in Los Angeles, California, US January 29, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Space Shuttle Endeavour is lifted at the California Science Center, where it will be paired with its iconic orange external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters inside the soon-to-be-completed Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, in Los Angeles, California, US January 29, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
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Space Shuttle Endeavour Hoisted for Installation in Vertical Display at LA Museum

Space Shuttle Endeavour is lifted at the California Science Center, where it will be paired with its iconic orange external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters inside the soon-to-be-completed Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, in Los Angeles, California, US January 29, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Space Shuttle Endeavour is lifted at the California Science Center, where it will be paired with its iconic orange external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters inside the soon-to-be-completed Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, in Los Angeles, California, US January 29, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake

NASA's retired Space Shuttle Endeavour was carefully hoisted late Monday to be mated to a huge external fuel tank and its two solid rocket boosters at a Los Angeles museum where it will be uniquely displayed as if it is about to blast off.
A massive crane delicately began lifting the orbiter, which is 122 feet (37 meters) long and has a 78-foot (24-meter) wingspan, into the partially built Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at the California Science Center in Exposition Park, The Associated Press reported.
The building will be completed around Endeavour before the display opens to the public.
The 20-story-tall display stands atop an 1,800-ton (1,633-metric ton) concrete slab supported by six so-called base isolators to protect Endeavour from earthquakes.
All parts of the vertical launch configuration are authentic components of the shuttle system, including the rust-colored external tank, which was flight-qualified.
Endeavour flew 25 missions between 1992 and 2011, when NASA’s shuttle program ended.
The shuttle was flown to Los Angeles International Airport in 2012 atop a NASA Boeing 747 and then created a spectacle as it was inched through tight city streets to Exposition Park. The external tank arrived by barge and made a similar trip across the city.
The shuttle was initially displayed horizontally in a temporary exhibit hall. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Air and Space Center was held in 2022 on the 11th anniversary of Endeavour’s final return from space.
The process of assembling the shuttle system in vertical configuration was dubbed “Go for Stack,” an informal term for putting together rocket components for launch.
It began in July with precise installation of the bottom segments of the side boosters, known as aft skirts, for the first time outside of a NASA facility. In use, the boosters would be attached to the external tank to help the shuttle's main engines lift off.
The 116-foot-long (35.3-meter-long) rocket motors were trucked to Los Angeles from the Mojave Desert in October and were installed the following month.
In all, NASA operated five shuttles in space. Shuttle Challenger and its crew were lost in a launch accident Jan. 28, 1986. Columbia and its crew were lost during return from orbit Feb. 1, 2003. Retired shuttles Atlantis and Discovery and the test ship Enterprise, which did not go to space, are on display across the country.
Atlantis is at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where it is displayed as if in orbit with its payload doors open and robotic arm extended. Discovery rests on its landing gear at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
Enterprise, which was released from a carrier aircraft for approach and landing tests, is displayed at the Intrepid Museum in New York.

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Rare Sahara Floods Bring Morocco’s Dried-up South Back to Life

Tourists camp on the shores of Erg Znaigui, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)
Tourists camp on the shores of Erg Znaigui, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)
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Rare Sahara Floods Bring Morocco’s Dried-up South Back to Life

Tourists camp on the shores of Erg Znaigui, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)
Tourists camp on the shores of Erg Znaigui, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)

In Morocco's southeastern desert, a rare downpour has brought lakes and ponds back to life, with locals -- and tourists -- hailing it as a gift from the heavens.

In Merzouga, an attractive tourist town some 600 kilometers (370 miles) southeast of the capital Rabat, the once-parched golden dunes are now dotted with replenished ponds and lakes.

"We're incredibly happy about the recent rains," said Youssef Ait Chiga, a local tour guide leading a group of German tourists to Yasmina Lake nestled amidst Merzouga's dunes.

Khalid Skandouli, another tour guide, said the rain has drawn even more visitors to the tourist area, now particularly eager to witness this odd transformation.

With him, Laetitia Chevallier, a French tourist and regular visitor to the region, said the rainfall has proved a "blessing from the sky".

"The desert became green again, the animals have food again, and the plants and palm trees came back to life," she said.

Locals told AFP the basin had been barren for nearly 20 years.

A man leads his camels along the shores of Yasmina lake, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)

Last year was Morocco's driest in 80 years, with a 48 percent drop in rainfall, according to an October report from the General Directorate of Meteorology (DGM).

But in September, torrential rains triggered floods in southern parts of Morocco, killing at least 28 people, according to authorities.

The rare heavy rains come as the North African kingdom grapples with its worst drought in nearly 40 years, threatening its economically crucial agriculture sector.

Neighboring Algeria saw similar rain and flooding in early September, killing six people.

North African countries currently rank among the world's most water-stressed, according to the World Resources Institute, a non-profit research organization.

The kingdom's meteorological agency described the recent massive rainfall as "exceptional".

It attributed it to an unusual shift of the intertropical convergence zone -- the equatorial region where winds from the northern and southern hemispheres meet, causing thunderstorms and heavy rainfall.

The sun sets behind the dunes at Yasmina lake, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)

- 'Climate change' -

"Everything suggests that this is a sign of climate change," Fatima Driouech, a Moroccan climate scientist, told AFP. "But it's too early to say definitively without thorough studies."

Driouech emphasized the importance of further research to attribute this event to broader climate trends.

Experts say climate change is making extreme weather events, such as storms and droughts, more frequent and intense.

In Morocco's south, the rains have helped partially fill some reservoirs and replenish groundwater aquifers.

But for those levels to significantly rise, experts say the rains would need to continue over a longer period of time.

The rest of the country is still grappling with drought, now in its sixth consecutive year, jeopardizing the agricultural sector that employs over a third of Morocco's workforce.

Tourists take pictures at Yasmina lake, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)

Jean Marc Berhocoirigoin, a 68-year-old French tourist, said he was surprised to find Yasmina Lake replenished. "I hadn't seen these views for 15 years," he said.

Water has also returned to other desert areas such as Erg Znaigui, about 40 kilometers south of Merzouga, AFP reporters saw.

While the rains have breathed life into Morocco's arid southeast, Driouech warns that "a single extreme event can't bring lasting change".

But last week, Morocco's meteorological agency said such downpours could become increasingly frequent, "driven partly by climate change as the intertropical convergence zone shifts further north".