How to
see SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Booster in Los Angeles
Los Angeles is one of the most popular destinations in the
USA, for tourists both domestic and international. It’s cheap to fly into and
has lots of attractions nearby, from Hollywood and Disney through the beaches
of of Malibu and the dramatic coastline north along
Highway 1.
But if you’re a space fan and you’re going to LA for a
holiday, there’s another attraction you shouldn’t miss – the headquarters of
SpaceX in the suburb of Hawthorne. The reason is that SpaceX has parked one of
its giant Falcon 9 boosters there. These boosters regularly make an appearance
on SpaceX’s launch broadcasts, most spectacularly landing in pairs following
launches of Falcon Heavy, but to really appreciate what an achievement that is,
you need to see one close up; at Hawthorne you can do just that and for free!
And the best thing of all is that SpaceX is near LA’s main airport LAX, so you
can take a quick detour there en route to almost
anywhere else in SoCal.
I took the short detour from LAX recently, so thought I’d
share how to get there, where to park and what you’ll see.
If you are picking up a rental car at LAX, you are likely to
end up at one of the rental offices on the eastern side of LAX. To get to
SpaceX in Hawthorne, find your way out onto Airport Boulevard (all the rental
car offices are clustered around it) and drive south for a couple of miles.
This takes you through a few lights and along the eastern edge of the LAX
runways.
Next, make an easy left at the lights onto West 120th
Street. Then drive three miles east (5 blocks), with the northern edge of
Hawthorne Airport on your right. You can see across to the SpaceX hangars as
you drive, with a tall white object already coming into view ahead and to the
right, behind the buildings.
At the end of Hawthorne Airport, take a right onto busy and
wide Crenshaw Boulevard. Almost immediately, you will notice the famous Monty
Python watchtower of the Boring Company and a tunnelling machine across the
road on the left, in front of a big multi-storey car park. Underneath a footbridge,
you’ll see SpaceX immediately on the right, with a huge sign on the front of
their HQ. But that isn’t what you’ll be looking at.
On the very corner of Crenshaw and Jack Northrop Avenue, just
past the SpaceX building is that Falcon 9 booster, set behind a high wall of
clear Plexiglas panels. It towers above everything else around and is visible
from all over this part of LA. The booster is a dramatic sight, so make sure to
keep your eyes on the road!
One possibility might be to park in the car park across on
the left side of Crenshaw, but I just turned right past the booster and found a
spot on the street a short way down Jack Northrop Avenue. If you’re a
just-landed foreign tourist like me, make sure you don’t park where the curb is
painted red or near a yellow fire hydrant!
The booster is an amazing thing. I was astonished at just how
big it is - it looks quite small when you see it land on TV, but it’s huge in
real life. You can get right up close and see the landing legs, the nine
expansion nozzles of the Merlin engines and the grid fins that stabilise the
booster on re-entry high above. If you find reflections from the Plexiglas wall
annoying, you can sneak your camera around a small gap around the far end of
the wall on Crenshaw for some great pics of the engines and landing legs,
reflection-free.
Getting away again is just as easy. Continue on down Jack
Northrop, past a SpaceX testing tunnel on the left. Make a left on to Prairie
Avenue and then right onto EL Segundo a block later. A mile further on is the
entrance to I-405, with various places to eat or buy gas on the way.
Boring Company Watchtower and Tunnelling Machine on the right
of Crenshaw Blvd
SpaceX HQ and Falcon 9 Booster from Crenshaw Blvd
My rental car (colour not my choice!) parked on Jack
Northrop, just west of the Falcon booster
Nine Merlins, seen through the
Plexiglas wall surrounding the booster. Second photo shows the scale, with a
SpaceX employ taking a break sitting on the wall behind
Falcon detail
Summary: A visit to the SpaceX falcon 9 booster at Hawthorne
is a highly recommended detour on a trip to LA