The students of Connelly School, an all-girls private institution in Anaheim, witnessed a historic occasion in the heavens. On Friday, Sept. 21, the entire student body and faculty gathered on the athletic field to watch the space shuttle Endeavor glide overhead during its farewell flight before retirement.
“We look for every opportunity to make learning come alive for our students,” said Sister Francine Gunther, head of the school. “Experiencing this historic moment as a community was important to us.”
The students of Connelly School, an all-girls private institution in Anaheim, witnessed a historic occasion in the heavens. On Friday, Sept. 21, the entire student body and faculty gathered on the athletic field to watch the space shuttle Endeavor glide overhead during its farewell flight before retirement.
“We look for every opportunity to make learning come alive for our students,” said Sister Francine Gunther, head of the school. “Experiencing this historic moment as a community was important to us.”
Approximately 200 students watch as Endeavour, attached on top of a jumbo jet, flew over.
Endeavor is the youngest of NASA’s shuttle fleet and the second-to-last to take a final trip to mark its retirement. It’s also the last one to do it by air.
On Thursday, Sept. 20, Endeavor arrived in Southern California, leaving Houston and landing at Edwards Air Force Base. From there, it launched an impressive tour of California, starting at 8:17 a.m. on Friday. The tour began in Lancaster and Palmdale and then headed to Northern California, where the shuttle visited Sacramento and San Francisco.
The carefully planned route provided thousands of California residents a glimpse of the shuttle, as well as a chance to snap a photographs as it made low swoops over museums, aquariums, designated aerospace sites, and state icons, like the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hollywood Sign, and, of course, Disneyland, where hundreds of people gathered to watch it sail over Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.
Connolly students saw the shuttle as it cruised along West Broadway Street en route to Disneyland, which it reached at about noon, delighting a crowd gathered in the theme park’s parking lot.
“It was absolutely amazing,” said Bryan Somers, who works in downtown Anaheim and witnessed the flight. “It’s something I’ll probably never see again.”
Several other Anaheim schools permitted students to watch the shuttle’s flight.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Orange County schools continue to maintain an interest in space flights. For example, Pine Junior High School was renamed Christa McAuliffe Middle School in honor of the teacher turned astronaut Christa McAuliffe, who died during the ill-fated launch of the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986.
The takeoff of the Challenger Space Shuttle was broadcast on television and viewed in classrooms across the country, including Orange County. The shuttle exploded 72 seconds after the launch at an altitude of 48,000 feet, a tragic event that deeply impacted all who witnessed it. A nationwide mourning ensued for the seven crew members who perished in the accident.