posted 05-06-2010 04:44 PM               

On 21 May, former AIAA President George Muellner will officiate at a ceremony designating the Downey Industrial Plant, in Downey, Calif., as a Historic Site.

This site saw the development of some of the most important air and spacecraft of the last 80 years, including the P-51 Mustang, the X-15, the Apollo command module, and the space shuttle.

Companies located here included EMSCO Aircraft, Security Aircraft, Champion Aircraft, Consolidated Vultee, North American Aviation, Rockwell International, and Boeing North American Rockwell.

posted 05-26-2010 01:19 PM               

The event was held under blistery skies last Friday in the lovely Endeavour room of the old main building. Sadly, Tesla announced the day before that it was not going to use the site here for a car plant, as it entered into a partnership with Toyota the day before to build in northern California. "But we will find a better project," Mayor Anne Bayer told me.

Many of the old hands were present, including my mentor who handed me a bag of goodies going back to his days on the Dyna Soar (X-20) program! I handed him a box set of HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon" tapes.

(A fun note - he was on the post fire Apollo 1 review board, and supplied us with info and badges - so on the "Apollo 1" episode - we gave his name to the character who turns off the hangar lights near the end of the episode!) (He can really be seen giving Frank Borman a tour of the Apollo 2 CM in the Spacecraft Film's "Apollo 1" DVD set.)

Over 100 people attended the private ceremony, including the Vice President of Boeing, who closed the plant in 1999. Others included Tom Mesmer, the President of Downey Studios, also National and local AIAA officials, and her Honor, the Mayor of Downey.

The plaque is in our office at ALF. It will be placed outside the original Rotunda, once a suitable rock to attach it to is located. I will submit some photos soon!

posted 05-27-2010 03:53 PM               

We already have the very first full scale orbiter ever built. The wooden mock up built in 1974. NASA donated it to the city in 1999 and it is still on the site, as the city plans on a second building to put it into, sometime in the future.

This unnamed shuttle was the first orbiter many new astronauts ever saw.

posted 09-03-2011 07:06 PM            

In a public court at one end of the former plant site, there are plaques on the walls commemorating many of the spacecraft built there. Here is Al with the Apollo 15 plaque.

At the other end of the plant a hospital has been built, and one doctor there has filled many hallways with photos and other images commemorating the space program. Here is Al looking at an Apollo 15 section.

Al in front of the old Building 290, at one time the largest clean room in the world, where Apollo spacecraft and space shuttle crew cabins were built.

Al touring inside the old building 290. It is now used for filming movies and TV shows, and that day was filmed with the sets for the "Yo Gabba Gabba!" show.

posted 09-03-2011 07:07 PM            

Al with one of the two Apollo boilerplates now back at the Downey site.

A sign on the wall at Downey.