HOLY. CLOUD – Space shuttle replica owned by a native of St. Cloud landed here this weekend after a week-long trip from Florida to Minnesota.
The hull took the 25-ton hull down winding roads and often through small towns, while each state’s respective troops rode in front and behind the transport vehicle due to its massive size.
“Each state needs its own permits — and then you have to get them to coordinate with each other,” said Felicity-John Pederson, shuttle owner. “There are so many things that can go wrong, so you’re so happy when each one goes right.
The space shuttle mock-up, called “Inspiration,” crossed into Minnesota just after midnight Saturday and arrived in St. Louis a few hours later. Cloud. On Monday, a crew at a local business began welding a rack to store the shuttle while Pederson and others plan its future.
“Our first job is to define what that is and then start pitching it to partners, maybe big companies here in Minnesota, especially if they’re involved in the aerospace industry,” Pederson said.
Pederson is a graduate of Apollo High School in St. Cloud, which boasts a NASA training capsule on its campus. He is the founder of the LVX System, which holds a patent for visible light communications – something he worked on with NASA. He and his wife, Irene, spend time in Florida and Minnesota.
In 2015, they took ownership of a full-size shuttle replica that had fallen into disrepair and was about to be destroyed, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring it.
“I think it’s one of the most amazing gifts I’ve ever given in my life,” said Pederson, who hopes the space shuttle can be permanently displayed in the large dome as part of the new “Inspiration Space Port” educational complex, which would also exhibit other space vehicles, host speakers and exhibits related to space travel, and sell tickets for virtual space tours.
NASA’s space shuttle program ended in 2011 with more than 130 missions completed. Two missions struck a chord: the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed on reentry and the Challenger disintegrated after liftoff, both incidents claiming the lives of seven crew members.
But other missions have struck a chord with millions of people across the country, especially Gen X and Millennial kids who grew up with dreams of visiting space. DFL State Sen. Aric Putnam, a local supporter of the project, hopes to bring that joy and wonder to new generations.
“I am excited about the opportunity to inspire our young people to be more ambitious and have big ideas, big hope,” he said.
Other space shuttles that have seen space are now on display on the coast: Discovery is in Washington, DC, Atlantis is at the Kennedy Space Center, and Endeavor is in Los Angeles. Enterprise, the prototype orbiter that didn’t fly but paved the way for the space shuttle program, is on display in New York. And another replica, called Independence, is displayed atop the shuttle in Houston.
Jim Banke, a Minnesota native and former aviation journalist in Florida, said a replica of Pederson’s space shuttle was built as a tourist attraction by the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in the early 1990s.
“This attraction opened outside of the American Astronaut Hall of Fame. It was originally called Shuttle to Tomorrow and it was basically a theater where you went into the cargo bay and … wore these headphones and watched a movie,” Banke said Monday.
After Pederson obtained the mockup of the shuttle, it was moved to the shuttle’s landing gear, which is now used by the government’s Space Florida agency, which works with commercial space companies such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Last fall, Space Florida told Pederson it needed to move the shuttle as soon as possible to make way for commercial expansion — prompting Pederson to move the behemoth to his hometown. People can follow the effort on the “Inspiration Space Port ISP” Facebook page.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for St. Cloud and all of Minnesota to have a space shuttle model on display,” Banke said. “Even if she never goes into space, I guarantee she will live up to her title of ‘Inspiration’ to anyone who sees her and learns more about the space program.”