Walk-Thru Space Shuttle

Tukwila, Washington

Seattle's Museum of Flight was disappointed that it wasn't awarded one of the three real Space Shuttles. It didn't even land the prototype Enterprise, which wound up in New York City. In hindsight, however, it did just fine.

What the museum did get was the full-size wooden "Space Shuttle Trainer," used by NASA to train every space shuttle astronaut. It looks kind of like a Space Shuttle (minus the wings). Its real advantage is that unlike the real Shuttles -- which are are sacred look-but-don't-touch exhibits -- the Space Shuttle Trainer is allowed to be inhabited by everyday tourist humans.

The museum exhibits the Shuttle Trainer in a pitch-black room with its cargo bay doors open and a satellite floating just outside it. Everyone is invited to stomp around inside the cargo bay -- but for an extra fee you can climb into the crew compartment and flight deck and really feel like a Shuttle astronaut, minus the zero gravity.