LAST PIT STOP?

Jason Whitely reports

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FORT WORTH – Under a full moon and heavy guard, Space Shuttle Endeavour is spending a cold night in Fort Worth.

NASA landed the Endeavour, attached atop a specially modified 747, Wednesday afternoon at the Joint Reserve Base. The space agency is ferrying it home to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida from California's Edwards Air Force Base, where astronauts landed it November 30.

Engineers piped 80-degree warm air inside the orbiter as it sat outside on the tarmac where the temperature was below 30 degrees. NASA said the interior of the vehicle must be kept warm to preserve the seals and other expensive equipment inside.

Seeing a shuttle in North Texas was a rare treat, including for the pilots escorting it.

"When they do occasionally land at Edwards, we always say 'Shucks, they had to land at Edwards," said Frank Marlow, NASA 747 Pilot.

This is the 52nd time NASA has piggybacked a shuttle since 1981 - landing here last in '97.

But after Wednesday's Endeavour's stopover, it's doubtful North Texas will again host such an awesome sight.

“I have seen it a lot and it's really pretty cool,” said Mike Moses, NASA’s Launch Integration Manager. “I can sit here and stare at it. It's really great with the moon coming up. That's a good segue way to our next goal - heading back to the moon and mars."

But the trip back to the moon and on to Mars won't be on the shuttle.

In 2010, NASA will park them for good – replacing the tired space trucks with the new set of spacecraft called the Constellation Program.

Astronauts are already training for it as engineers continue to design and test equipment.

President George Bush ordered NASA to deploy a new set of rockets after Columbia's crash five years ago.

The new Ares rocket will carry equipment, significantly more payload than the shuttle does now.

Another rocket, the Orion, will carry the crew. Completing each mission, they will descend back to Earth in a capsule, landing much like Apollo astronauts did with parachutes, except they’ll touch down on land instead of in the sea.

Still, Constellation is seven years or so away.

For now, NASA is rushing to help complete the International Space Station. Only nine shuttle missions are left for the shuttle and three orbiters remain, including Endeavour - spending the night with us.

E-mail jwhitely@wfaa.com