External Tank 94, a 69,000-pound artifact from NASA’s space shuttle program, is en route to a permanent home at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The tank, which was one of 138 built at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, is the last of its kind. ET-94 left its storage site there this week on a barge for its five-week journey. The barge will travel to the Pacific via the Panama Canal and arrive in southern California next month, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. There, crews will place the tank on a specially assembled wheeled mount for a drive through L.A. streets to the Science Center. There, it will go on display with the shuttle Endeavour, which took a similar trip through the city in 2012.
This tank is a 154-foot-long lightweight version of the external tank that launched with the space shuttle, absorbing and distributing more than 7 million pounds of thrust while distributing liquid oxygen and hydrogen to the orbiter’s main engines, according to NASA documents. After the shuttle Columbia’s fatal accident on re-entry in 2003, NASA designated ET-94 a test article as the agency planned for the shuttle’s return to service, which took place with the launch of Discovery in 2005. “I’ll always see, when I look at ET-94 … that it’s a critical team member, that it made a difference,” a NASA official told the Times. “When you think about it, it’s really appropriate for ET-94 to be the one that’s on center stage now. It’s time for it to have its day and be displayed.” As the tank makes its way to Los Angeles, Thursday also marks the 35th anniversary of the first shuttle landing, when Columbia touched down at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
