Shuttle model 'Inspiration' barging into new mission

For more than two decades, the model space shuttle "Inspiration" served as a classroom for students and campers studying space, and a backdrop for tourists' photos commemorating visits to the Space Coast.

On Saturday, the full-size orbiter mockup will depart its longtime post outside the former Space Camp Florida and U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame building on State Road 405 in Titusville to embark on a new education mission likely bound for the Midwest.

The journey will start around 7 a.m. when Inspiration is placed on a transporter and deposited on a nearby barge for an hours-long float down the Indian River Lagoon to a Merritt Island refurbishment facility.

"We would like to create a piece that is designed for education and for people to see it on display," said John Pederson, CEO of LVX System, Inspiration’s new owner. "I think it’s going to be really cool."

LVX System has patented a technology that uses LED lights to transmit high-speed data, and last summer signed a Space Act Agreement at Kennedy Space Center enabling it to collaborate with NASA on potential applications.

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Pederson said he first inquired about Inspiration's availability for potential technology tests and was told it might be demolished.

Delaware North, operator of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and the Astronaut Hall of Fame, is relocating the Hall of Fame and education programs to its main Merritt Island campus across the river from where Inspiration has been parked since 1992. After weighing options for Inspiration, it agreed to donate the mockup to LVX System.

Pederson said he expects to spend at least $5 million to upgrade Inspiration for a barge tour that would stop in various cities, possibly heading up the Mississippi River to Minnesota, where both Pederson and KSC Director Bob Cabana have roots.

Improvements might include a “total immersion” movie theater in the cargo bay and upgraded flight deck instrumentation for simulations. Partnerships could be established with schools and museums.

“A lot of people have never seen a space shuttle or how big they are,” said Pederson, a Merritt Island resident who turns 57 on Saturday. “I really do believe a lot of people are going to have a lot of fun seeing this.”

The traveling Inspiration, which in earlier years was known as the “Shuttle to Tomorrow” and “Endeavour,” will double as a marketing tool for LVX System.

The company won’t charge admission fees, but Pederson said the project would help increase awareness about its technology and lend the company credibility.

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"I think it’s a beautiful investment," he said. "One of the biggest challenges with new technologies is to get people to notice it and see it and believe that you’re going to be there to do this, and commitments like this help that."

A half-million dollars or more is being spent just to reinforce and move Inspiration, which was not designed to be transported in one piece and is estimated to weigh 80 tons.

Like a real shuttle orbiter, it measures 122 feet long with a 78-foot wingspan, dimensions that will require some power lines to be taken down during the move.

If weather and other systems cooperate, Cocoa-based Beyel Brothers Inc. will secure Inspiration atop a transporter and carry it about a mile to the east to the barge.

The barge and shuttle should depart between 10:30 a.m. and noon, moving downriver before crossing the Barge Canal to a Beyel Brothers facility where Inspiration could spend a year undergoing repairs in a temporary shelter.

Inspiration is the second shuttle mockup to which the KSC Visitor Complex has bid farewell in recent years. The orbiter replica Explorer in 2012 sailed by barge to Houston, where it will soon open to the public as part of a new exhibit atop a retired 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

Explorer's exit helped make way for the Visitor Complex’s $100 million Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit featuring the NASA orbiter whose 33 missions included the shuttle program’s last flight in 2011.

The former Hall of Fame building, now called the ATX Center, has a shuttle simulator inside, so the Inspiration wasn’t essential to its programs.

"I am excited to put it out there and to have people see it," Pederson said of Inspiration. "People really do like seeing this."

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.