On the 1st of February 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia tragically broke up on re-entry killing all seven astronauts on board.

However, here it is, seemingly unscathed in a Canadian field!

It turns out that is actually a full-scale model of Columbia at the “Great Island Science and Adventure Park”. It’s claimed that this is one of only such six replicas¹ and the only that claims (rather insensitively) to let you experience “how the astronauts lived”.

But it’s doubtful that the experience will be very authentic, as this replica wasn’t built from any designs, instead being based on a 1/72 plastic scale model kit and a “large number of books”.

Further information on the Science park homepage².

Thanks to Karl M S.

A strange procession is moving through the streets of Los Reyes Acozac in Mexico – the fuselages of not one, but two aircraft!

As they’re roughly 100 feet in length, the giant plane bodies could be for Boeing 737s – but what would they be doing here? 737 fuselages are usually made in Wichita, Kansas, so it’s a bit of a mystery why they would be in convoy through Mexico.

Discussions on the Google Earth community suggest the fuselages could actually be for McDonnell Douglas DC9/10s – which went out of production decades ago – so maybe they’re being scrapped somewhere round here?

If they are scrap, hopefully they won’t be abandoned on the road as happened to one Boeing 737 making its way through Mumbai traffic last year…

Thanks to carmedic.

The first imagery update of the New Year is now available in Google Earth.

As usual, Google have announced the update with a scavenger hunt while Google Earth Blog, which noticed the update earlier today, has a more complete list of what’s new.

Update: The new imagery is now available in both Google Earth and Google Maps and a full list of what’s new has been posted.

Get suggesting!

The number of cars in the drive, and the number of people in the pool at this house in Cleveland, Ohio, can mean only one thing… Pool Paaaaarty!

I wanted to illustrate what this pool party might look like from the ground, and I found this QuickTime VR image of a pool party in progress. Now I’m wondering what kind of geek makes a Quicktime VR image of a pool party?

Thanks to James Boorman-Padgett.

Way out in the Mojave Desert lies California City. With an estimated 2007 population of little more than 12,500, the name suggests a hope for much more than it ever became. Nevertheless, the city’s area is a massive 203.6 square miles, which actually makes it the 34th largest city by area in the United States!¹

In 1958, property developer Nat Mendelsohn had his eyes on this patch of desert with the hope of founding a rival to Los Angeles, and promptly gobbled up 80,000 acres of prime Mojave sand. Mendelsohn had grand plans, and even went to the effort of laying out acres of street blocks, but the city wasn’t a success.

Today, a large proportion of California City’s residents are employed at nearby Edwards Air Force Base but the city is still so small it doesn’t even have its own grocery shop!

Amazingly, even though there are no houses outside the central development, developers have gone to the trouble of naming every single street, and have designated parks for miles around. One such, “Borax Bill Park” is named after the leader of the Twenty mule team, which became famous in the late 19th century for carrying minerals from mines further inland to the west of the Mojave, passing through this area during their expeditions.

California city’s main claim to fame (apart from its startlingly pathetic population growth), is the Hyundai-Kia Proving grounds, a new $60 million dollar test track based over 4300 acres. The cheap land and privacy of the desert makes this an ideal location for test tracks – just a few miles away is the even bigger Honda Proving Center of California, where the company’s concept cars are tested and tweaked before release.

There’s more on California City at both Wikipedia and from their official community website. There’s also a great aerial shot which shows the proving grounds and the vast emptiness of the city.

Thanks to Ross Burnett and seer.