Watch time-lapse video of Shuttle Endeavour's voyage across L.A

The organizers had to cut down ~400 trees but promised to plant ~1,000 in place. http://io9.com/5944492/xspace-shuttle-endeavours-journey-to-museum-will-require-400-trees-to-be-cut-down

The space shuttle isn't something you can simply helicopter to its final destination nor chop up and reassemble.

Even if they did plant 1,000 trees to "replace" them, cutting down that many mature trees changes the face of entire neighborhoods. It sucks if you're a property owner there.

I don't see why they couldn't have chopped up the bird and re-assembled on site. It's not like it has to be flight worthy again.

In many cases, they're going to be replacing cut trees with new ones that are already fairly large. Also: many of the trees removed were already slated for removal due to maintenance issues; the city was, in fact, planning to replace them with trees better suited to climate and place.

As for "chopping up the bird", that would have required a major disassembly which would have then required bringing MANY expert personnel to LA to rebuild the ship. Many of those people might not even be available, plus, the added expense would have been unrealistic.

Finally... Have you ever taken a long look at one of the space-going shuttles from the side or below? The wings are integrated into the overall design in a VERY intricate manner, with the heat shielding crating essentially a solid form, broken only by the landing gear doors. It's not a simple airplane.

You fail to comprehend all that was accomplished during the shuttle's time in space and the experiments conducted. Give it a few years as scientists & researchers conduct their experiments. I read/heard the same thing from people in the '60's who said it was a waste of money for NASA to fulfill JFK's pledge to have a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Then in the '70's they said why continue the exploration since we got someone up there. The computer you're using is just one example of why. America need to wake up and fully fund NASA.

To WT21: with the Benny Hill opening song, it's 100% perfect. It works with Jean-Jacques Perrey's "Baroque Hoedown" quite well too (cf: http://youtu.be/Ax00vnsZPKE ).

To prrbill: are you so arrogant to think computer science is a product of the USA to an extend it couldn't have existed without american engineers who worked on space projects ? Your knowledge of history seems too poor in my opinion to allow you to prescribe anything when it comes to the way of using citizen's hard-earned money.

Do you think the building of the ISS was inconsequential?

It's the first time anything that large was built in space. The shuttle was the only vehicle available to lift the components. We will need the large-scale zero-grav assembly experience and long-duration habitation data if we're to go any further into space.

You know what else was quite boring? Most of the other technical achievements involved in most of the technology you like to interact with daily.

In fact, being "quite boring" is a hallmark of a spectacularly successful technology, if it becomes so day-to-day that you take it for granted. We wanted shuttle missions to become routine, not missions where it was a major victory if an individual launch actually worked without killing anyone. Routine means we got it down.