Space shuttle fuel tank will boost California Science Center exhibit

LOS ANGELES—The California Science Center is the only museum in the nation that planned to make its space shuttle exhibit with as many authentic parts as possible, set up as if it's ready to launch.

There was a problem. The enormous orange external fuel tank, which attaches to the shuttle's belly, is burned up in the atmosphere shortly after every liftoff. Museum officials figured they'd have to settle for a replica.

But in a coup for the Science Center, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has now agreed to give the last remaining external fuel tank to the state-run museum's Endeavour exhibit, officials announced this week. The move is set for late this year, and would happen in November at the earliest.

The fuel tank is huge. At 153.8 feet in length, it is taller than a 15-story building, and longer than Endeavour's 122 feet. But it is skinnier, with a diameter of 26.7 feet, because it has no wings, which will make it generally easier for it to navigate the streets of Los Angeles than the shuttle once did.

At about 66,000 pounds, it is less than half the weight of Endeavour.

The fuel tank will come to California the same way it was shipped to Florida's Kennedy Space Center—by barge. It will start a 45-day journey at sea from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the fuel tanks were built by Lockheed Martin, and then pass through the Panama Canal, and end up in Marina del Rey, near Los Angeles.

Then, it will begin a daylong journey through the streets of Southern California to get to the Science Center near downtown Los Angeles.

“We are very excited,” said Jeffrey N. Rudolph, president of the Science Center. “A lot of people at NASA see the value in having one place in the world where there could be the full space shuttle showing the full system in one place.”

At a time when there's a lot of fake, Hollywood-style replicas, nothing beats the real thing, Rudolph said.

“It's the reason why so many people have been coming to see the shuttle. There's a value in authenticity,” he said. “In today's world, you can see anything virtually. Seeing the real thing is not so common anymore.”