I still don't think it was worth destroying 400 old trees just to move it down the street. 
Its not going to fly again...they could have taken off the wings and put it back together at the museum.
I grew up in this area. Many of the sidewalk trees are ficus and are lifting up the sidewalk so that you can't walk on it, especially on the Manchester leg of the run. I can't answer for other legs. You all know how I love the garden, but these should have been taken out 50 years ago and something more appropriate put in. On Sepulveda, north of LAX the side walk is lifted, in general minimum foot and some areas nearly two feet high. Yes, that's what I said, no typo. They've been this way for 20-30 years. There was an article in the local paper about this recently and as usual it's a wad of doo-doo, but basically the plan for L.A. City's street trees is trimming every 50 years unless there's an emergency. Yes, that's what I said, no typo.
As for taking the wings, off, the Shuttle is not an airplane. They looked at this option first. The wings are an integral part of the Shuttle, body & interior, and to remove them and put them back on was not possible. I saw an interview Friday with the guy in charge of the project. He seemed very thoughtful about all of the problems. The vehicle that is transporting it sounds a lot like the second vehicle they got to bring up the sections for the bridge on Hw2 - separate sections, leveling, etc. So, the vehicle will actually be zig-zagging the street medians as it goes along to minimize the amount of trees and infrastructure like poles that needs to be taken down. He *reported* that where trees needed to be taken down, that the individuals were contacted. In some cases with opposing neighbors and one liked their tree and the other didn't, the latter was taken down instead.
I'm sure some folks still have angst about their trees, but I don't think this is a project where you can please everyone. I'm happy that the museum is planting double the trees back, hopefully they will be of some size, haven't heard about that aspect.
As for the shuttle being in L.A., I think that's more important. Hundreds of thousands of people in So. Cal. worked on various aspects of the space program, it will be great for them to visit and bring their kids and grandkids to actually see what they did. I hope it will inspire more L. A. area children to have goals, and to pursue math, science and engineering.
