In the cockpit of the space shuttle pilot

Have you ever seen what the cockpit of a space shuttle pilot looks like? We offer you this opportunity, albeit a virtual one.

Below you can see rare footage from Ben Cooper-the cockpit of the space shuttle Endeavour before one of the last flights. Just a few weeks after these images were taken, at 9:58 am on May 11, 2011, the shuttle Endeavour was turned off forever.

Ben Cooper is a freelance photographer and former NASA photographer, now working in Florida. He has been following shuttle launches and other events at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center since July 1999.

He has already shot more than 100 missions and launches.

For the last few years of the shuttle program, he photographed for NASA and led a team of photographers at the Kennedy Space Center.

His duties included photographing the appearance of shuttles and orbiting aircraft, as well as taking pictures intended for distribution, including various award ceremonies.

The decision to create the Endeavour shuttle was made in 1987 to replace the lost Challenger spacecraft. The shuttle was commissioned by NASA in May 1991.

The space shuttle was named after one of the ships of the British Navy, on which Captain James Cook traveled. This vessel was used, among other things, for astronomical observations, which made it possible to accurately determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

Endeavour made its first flight on May 7, 1992. The shuttle has more than two dozen successful missions, including the repair of the Hubble telescope. In June 2011, the shuttle Atlantis completed its last mission, landing at the Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida.

In the pictures below, you will see the middle deck already without cabinets and safes.

And this is the assembly and testing building for the preparation of the orbital stage, on the walls of which thousands of employees of the space center have left their autographs.

In October 2011, the shuttle Endeavour was delivered to the Los Angeles Museum, its transportation through the streets of the city took almost two days.