When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art wanted to drag a 340-ton boulder across the city to display in an exhibit, it managed the task with only the loss of two palm trees along the way.

In sharp contrast, carting the space shuttle Endeavour from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to its new home 12 miles away at the California Science Center in Exposition Park will result in the chainsaw massacre of 400 trees in Los Angeles and the city of Inglewood. A freeway route that would have spared the environment was considered first, but the five-story-high aircraft would not have fit under overpasses.

Inglewood began hacking away at 128 pine, ficus, magnolia and other trees along the early part of the route on Tuesday and L.A. will soon take aim at 245 decades-old pines and others further along the way. Endeavour is expected to arrive at LAX on September 20, where it will be housed until its journey three weeks later.

Hundreds of traffic signals, street signs and utility lines will also be dismantled to clear a path for the shuttle’s 78-foot wingspan, but those will be replaced, reportedly at the expense of the Science Center, but replacing the trees is another matter.

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said the city will plant twice as many trees as are being removed and the Science Center has committed $500,000 to the landscaping effort.

“They are cutting down these really big, majestic trees,” Lark Galloway-Gilliam, a resident who lives near the route, told the Los Angeles Times. “It will be beyond my lifetime before they will be tall like this again.”

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Tree Removal for Space Shuttle Arrival Tempers Excitement (by Angel Jennings, Los Angeles Times)

Lights! Cameras! (and Cheers) for a Rock Weighing 340 Tons (by Adam Nagourney, New York Times)

Los Angeles, Inglewood Officials to Sacrifice 400 'Majestic' Trees in Way of Space Shuttle Endeavour (by Simone Wilson, LA Weekly)