discovered to their surprise that this lightweight insulating material
could indeed puncture a hole in the leading edge of the wing. The
tragic loss of the Columbia also led to the realization that a way
to inspect and repair damage to the surface of the vehicle, postlaunch, would have to be developed.
The huge External Tank, to which the orbiter is affixed, is the last
part to be jettisoned after launch and largely burns up over the
ocean during re-entry. With the demise of Columbia, a large piece
of history had been orphaned and its very existence was hanging in
the balance between making history or becoming history. Luckily,
someone realized what a treasure and opportunity they had in the
one remaining flight-worthy External Tank.
About two years ago NASA agreed to gift External Tank #94, or
ET-94 as it is commonly called, to the California Science Center. All
the center had to do was arrange transportation. A chain of events
and major planning immediately got underway. The tank was huge
in size and certainly not flyable by plane as the orbiters had been.
Th e move would require careful and special handling all the way.
Only a handful of companies were qualified to perform such a
move and handle it pretty much “door to door.”
Emmert International, a huge engineering and logistics giant with
assets located all over the world, had the know-how and experience to fearlessly move almost anything from here to there. Masters
of meticulous planning, they arranged everything from pickup of
the tank from its home at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility near
New Orleans, to transfer onto a specially fitted barge and subsequent passage through the Panama Canal (a first for an External
Tank). Sounds simple…yet the dimensions of the bulky tank and the
distance involved were daunting.
At 154 feet in length, the ET stands at the equivalent of a 15-story
building and actually dwarfs the orbiter itself in launch position,
where the massive ET looks like a canvas upon which the shuttle
has been painted. The orbiter, however, is much heavier than the
ET…which was shipped empty, of course, yet still weighed a 65,000
pounds.
The tank’s diameter is a slim 27.5 feet…much narrower than the
span required by Endeavour to traverse the streets of Los Angeles,
significantly reducing the impact on the trees and streets of the
metropolitan area…which was minimal by comparison to the Endeavour move. There was, however, a blizzard of permits that had
to be sought from the various cities through which the entourage
had to pass thorugh during the 16 mile move from the coastline
to the museum. There were a number of municipalities and utilities
that had to be consulted and carefully coordinated with in order to
move signals, signage and electrical wires during the move. Making
the 90-degree turns along the route was the major challenge this
time. While the wheels on the trailer could be turned 90 degrees,
the rig itself could not back up. Each turn had to be precisely engineered and executed in forward motion only.
A lot could have gone wrong – but didn’t – during the 41 day
voyage of 4,400 nautical miles journey through the multiple locks
and the traffic of the busy Panama Canal. There was a moment of
drama that occurred when ET-94 and her tow-barge encountered
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