Countdown to Endeavour: Tickets for final takeoff going for $90

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The space shuttle Endeavour takes off from Edwards Air Force Base piggybacked to a modified 747 on its way back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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The space shuttle Endeavour leaves Edwards Air Force Base and heads back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Endeavour’s next flight, to the International Space Station, is scheduled for summer. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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The space shuttle Endeavour is parked in the Mate-Demate Device at NASA‘s Dryden Flight Research Center as it is being prepared for its flight back to the Kennedy Space Center. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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The space shuttle Endeavour, which is being prepared for its return flight to the Kennedy Space Center. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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Jeff Swaney examines the thermal protection system on the Endeavour before it is taken back to the Kennedy Space Center. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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The shuttle is lifted in the Mate-Demate Device before being mounted on a modified Boeing 747. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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Mike Mangione puts star tracker covers on the nose of the space shuttle Endeavour. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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Pilot Eric Boe, mission specialists Donald Pettit and Steve Bowen, Commander Christopher Ferguson, and mission specialists Sandy Magnus, Shane Kimbrough and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper walk out of the operations and checkout building on their way to board the Space Shuttle Endeavour at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Nov. 14. (Eliot J. Schechter / Getty Images)

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Space Shuttle Endeavour lifts off at Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 14. (Eliot J. Schechter / Getty Images)

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Spectators search the sky as the Space Shuttle Endeavour approaches Edwards Air Force Base in California on Nov. 30, 2008. The shuttle was re-routed to the Antelope Valley landing site because of bad weather Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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Space Shuttle Endeavour approaches runway 04-left at Edwards Air Force Base. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

By Richard Simon

Sept. 6, 2012 9:24 AM PT

WASHINGTON -- The countdown has begun for delivery of the retired space shuttle Endeavour to Los Angeles, the last orbiter that will fly out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a jet.

L.A.’s welcome of the Endeavour is shaping up as splashier than Kennedy Space Center’s farewell. L.A. is promising a marching band, among other fanfare, fitting for the spectacle of a space shuttle traveling through the city streets; the program at Kennedy Space Center (expect speeches) is still being put together.

Still, Kennedy Space Center’s visitors complex is selling tickets -- $90 for adults, including admission to the visitor complex -- to view the Endeavour’s final departure Sept. 17 from near where shuttles landed after completing their missions. Or, visitors who pay the complex’s $50 admission charge can watch the modified 747 carrying the shuttle fly 300 feet over their heads from the complex’s rocket garden.

PHOTOS: Space shuttle Endeavour 1991-2012

The plane carrying the shuttle is due to arrive at Los Angeles International Airport on Sept. 20, weather permitting, after a flyover of the region.

NASA is now considering flying the Endeavour over other cities on its way to L.A.; the space shuttle Discovery’s flyover of Washington -- en route to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum -- drew big crowds in April. The space agency is expected to announce the route later this week for Endeavour’s cross-country journey.

The plane carrying the shuttle is scheduled to land Sept. 19 at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, home of NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center and a place where the Endeavour often landed on its own. But no public events are planned there.

A NASA team and others involved in delivering 170,000-pound shuttles to New York and Washington will be on hand at LAX to prepare the orbiter for the slow 12-mile trip through city streets to the California Science Center; that journey will begin on the morning of Oct. 12.

The shuttle is due to arrive at the science center in Exposition Park on the night of Oct. 13. It will go on public display on Oct. 30.

The science center won the prized space artifact after a fierce nationwide competition.

The space shuttle Discovery and the test shuttle Enterprise are already drawing crowds at the National Air and Space Museum annex in northern Virginia and at New York City’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, respectively. The shuttle Atlantis, already at the Kennedy Space Center, will be towed a short distance in November to the visitor complex there and put on public display in July.

Since Discovery’s arrival, 655,239 people have visited the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center, about a 30% increase from the same period a year ago, according to the National Air and Space Museum spokeswoman.

Since the Space Shuttle Pavilion opened at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in mid-July, the museum has seen a nearly 59% increase in attendance for July and August compared to the same period a year ago, a spokesman said.

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