Space shuttle a big attendance booster for California Science Center

Keilyn Wells, left, Richard Hercules and Taylor Semaganda, fifth-graders from Century Park Elementary School in Inglewood, look at photographs related to the space shuttle and its painstaking journey across the city last year.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Richard Hercules, left, and Keilyn Wells, students from Century Park Elementary, look at photos related to the shuttle. School groups were just some of visitors who streamed into the display pavilion Monday. In awe, guests stopped almost immediately after entering, snapping photos of Endeavour.   (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

For now, Endeavour is in a temporary display pavilion. But museum officials are busy drawing up plans for the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, a wing expected to open in about five years. There, the 122-foot-long shuttle will be displayed vertically as though ready for launch.   (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Kennedy McCreary, left, and Iyan Wilson, fifth-graders from Century Park Elementary, take in a photograph of Endeavour piggybacking on a modified 747 past the Hollywood sign.   (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Visitors line up to view the shuttle. “I never dreamed that it would be this important to L.A.,” said Lynda Oschin, chairwoman of the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel and Lynda Oschin Family Foundation, which made what was described as an “extraordinary” financial contribution to bring the shuttle to the museum.   (Al Seib, / Los Angeles Times)