Oschin Air & Space Center Preview

Space Shuttle Endeavour

The California Science Center held a media preview for its new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center (opening Nov. 13, 2026). Governor Gavin Newsom was a surprise guest, offering opening remarks. 

The Oschin building adds about 200,000 sf of exhibition space. That's nearly the gallery space of the nearby Lucas Museum and the crosstown Geffen Galleries put together. But space has three dimensions, and it's the verticals that dazzle here. Some first reactions—

Naming Opportunities. The Oschin Center consists of three galleries, that is, large multi-level spaces named for donors. The Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery is the obvious must-see. The Kent Kresa Space Gallery is a wunderkammer of space probes, drawn largely from JPL's holdings. The Korean Air Aviation Gallery becomes the West Coast's closest approach to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. 

Endeavour. The space shuttle gallery is introduced with a Bad Robot (J.J. Abrams) movie that dissolves into fog. The theatrics aren't much different from what you'd encounter at a theme park. Then the fog dissolves into a view of the shuttle Endeavour. The scale is stupendous, even if you have no particular interest in 1990s NASA. This is L.A.'s obelisk, an expression of one age's aspiration that was moved at great expense and ingenuity to be shown upright. With the external tank and boosters, it s just short of 200 ft high. That's twice the height of Disneyland's Space Mountain, or Rome's Lateran Obelisk from Karnak. 

The orange external fuel tank held liquid hydrogen and oxygen. These fuel tanks were not reusuable; this is the last one in existence. 

Governor Newsom rolls up his sleeves to try out the slide. To the left is CSC President Jeffrey Rudolph.

Slide. The Endeavor gallery has a number of interactive displays, but the star attraction is the 115-ft long tubular metal slide, leading from the gallery's upper level to the ground floor. Did astronauts use slides like this? Nope. It's supposed to simulate the shuttle's re-entry, with sound effects and lightning flashes, though that part wasn't working at the preview. It just a big-ass slide, not steep enough to be scary. The vertical drop is 45 ft. Governor Newsom was the first to demonstrate. 

Slide entrance

You have to be 48 inches high to slide, and they're expecting queues once the place is open. 

Slide landing and ground-floor exhibits

Mars probes, courtesy of JPL

Kresa Space Gallery. Europe has grown-up science museums displaying original, history-of-science artifacts. American science museums are mostly for kids. The Oschin Center attempts to combine the two paradigms. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has supplied plenty of original spacecraft, spacesuits, and other artifacts. (But authenticity is a tricky matter here. Space-flown objects are shown as well as period duplicates that never went into space and life-size reconstructions.) The interactive displays are novel and fun. Even the text panels are more engaging than most, and up to date.

Apollo 16 spacesuit

Flown command module from 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

George Lucas insisted on sci-fi spacecraft that looked worn, scuffed, and beat-up. The Kresa Gallery's flown capsules show that space is a harsh environment for anything humans make. The Apollo command module's rusty orange stains testify to its ocean splashdown.

The Martian rover interactive includes a speed-of-light time delay, though not as much as the 3- to 22-minute delay that JPL engineers deal with.

Text panel for Laniakea Supercluster

Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS)

The snake-like Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor is a crawing robot intended to search for life on other planets. 

Boeing 747

Korean Air Aviation Gallery. Boeing 747s were produced from 1968 to 2023. A partial Korean Air 747 is treated as a period artifact, albeit one with walk-in views of the passenger section, upper level, and cockpit. You'll learn how the drop-down oxygen masks work and why there are little holes in the windows. 

Upper level of 747

747 oxygen masks

Modern replica of Lilienthal Glider

The earliest aircraft design shown is a full-scale replica of Otto Lilienthal's wood-and-fabric hang glider, devised in 1893.

Velie Monocoupe 70, 1927–29. 

On loan from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum is this Velie Monocoupe, a closed-cabin two-seater whose sporty design appealed to Jazz-age enthusiasts. Ads claimed it could be operated for a fuel cost of $1 an hour.

Out of Order. The first law of science museums is that no more than half the interactive exhibits can be in working order at any given time. That law applied to this preview. 

ZGF Architects, Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center 

Architecture. You probably won't pay much attention to the building, by ZGF Architects. From the outside, the space enclosing Endeavour is a stainless steel truncated cone. It's said to allude to Endeavour's exterior, but it's no less an homage/rip-off of Frank Gehry's Disney Hall/Guggenheim Bilbao phase. Gehry, of course, designed Exposition Park's original air and space museum, and it's still there, derelict. 

Bragging Rights. The expansion appears to make the CSC the nation's largest science museum (as distinguished from natural history museum) by gallery space. With the Oschin, CSC will have 440,000 sf of exhibition space in all, versus 400,000 for the Chicago's Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, which claims itself to be the biggest. The Griffin's marquee attraction is a German U-boat from WWII. It's longer (252 ft) than the Endeavor is high, but there can't be many young visitors who'd rather see a submarine than a spaceship.

Admission. Like the rest of CSC, the Oschin Center is free with an asterisk. Certain features, such as the elevator ride up to the shuttle's top ($10), come with a extra fee. But I don't think that any of the premium features are essential. This raises the possibility of a family of four touring the Oschin Center (and the rest of CSC) for free*. The catch is that the Center is likely to be mobbed during popular times for the coming months. CSC doesn't guarantee admission unless you have timed reservations—and they charge a $4 service fee for that.

Add $20 for parking or about half that for round-trip Metro.