Los Angeles and New York were the two surprises in Tuesday's announcement, Pearlman says.
“New York’s connection to the space shuttle program is minimal at best,” he says.
Los Angeles, however, has strong ties to the program.
“It’s where the space shuttles were built,” says Pearlman. Southern California is "where they landed when they couldn’t come back to Florida or before the landing site was available.”
Like New York, Los Angeles has the potential to deliver millions of visitors to the space shuttle. But before Endeavour retires to the area where it was built, it has one more flight. Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona, is scheduled to command a mission launching April 29.
