Space Shuttle External Fuel Tank

[acme54321]

FYI-

Word on the street is that the last remaining Space Shuttle external fuel tank to leave KSC will be coming through downtown around 7:30 on a barge.  Should be a sight to see.  Those things aren't small!

[mbwright]

where is it going?

[acme54321]

Green Cove I think.  Then over land to an upstart aviation museum at Keystone Airport.

[spuwho]

NASA has a Titan Storage Depot outside Keystone, if that is the direction, then that is probably where it is going.

[acme54321]

Nope.  It's going to Keystone Airport.

The Titan storage facility is only for the rocket engines. 

[spuwho]

http://www.wesh.com/news/central-florida/brevard-county/Shuttle-external-fuel-tank-leaving-KSC/-/11788124/19880626/-/djb3uvz/-/index.html

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-042413a.html


April 24, 2013 â€" The last of the space shuttle's massive orange external fuel tanks located at NASA's Florida launch site left Kennedy Space Center by barge on Wednesday (April 24) â€" but it's not going very far.

The 154-foot-long (47-meters) external tank, one of the shuttle program's original test articles that for years was displayed at Kennedy's visitor complex, departed the spaceport for the Wings of Dreams Aviation Museum at the Keystone Heights Airport in Starke, Fla., about an hour southeast of Jacksonville.

"It is the last one," Bob Oehl, the executive director and co-founder of the Wings of Dreams, told collectSPACE about the tank. "So it is quite a historic artifact in its own right."

Known as the Structural Test Article (STA), the external tank was built in 1977 and used for loading and stress analysis tests. It was then exhibited at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. In 1987, it was shipped to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for display where it remained for 10 years, prior to its transfer to Kennedy.

The tank was displayed in Florida until November of last year, when it was moved to make way for the retired space shuttle Atlantis and its new exhibition facility. A mock external tank is set to be erected outside Atlantis' building next month.

The displaced real tank, along with several other large shuttle artifacts including a nose cone and aft skirt of a solid rocket booster and the crew transport vehicle that astronauts rode in after landing the shuttle at Kennedy, were making the first leg of their journey to the Wings of Dreams by water, before embarking on a still-to-be-scheduled 55-mile (88.5-kilometer) road trip to the museum.

"This will be the largest aviation article that has been transported over land since Howard Hughes moved the Spruce Goose," Oehl said.

Leaving the turn basin located opposite the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building where external tanks were once mated with the shuttle orbiters they would help launch, the artifact-laden barge set sail by tugboat to the Intracoastal Waterway. It was then to head down the St. Johns River to end up in Green Cove Springs in about 30 hours time, where the shuttle parts will be offloaded for eventual delivery to the Wings of Dreams.

Before the artifacts can be trucked to the museum however, miles of power and telephone lines, as well as street signs and traffic signals need to be cleared from the route's rural highways.

"It is a tremendous, tremendous effort and what is really unique about Wings of Dreams is that everything you see, the cranes, the tug boats, the barge, the huge trucks, the electricians, the welders, they are all donated," Oehl said. "This is not a government project."

"We have no major sponsor," he added. "We're looking for one because we have to house all of this."

The Wings of Dreams has already received from NASA more than 40 artifacts from the shuttle program, including the guidance and navigation "single system" trainer, or simulator, that the astronauts used to prepare for missions at Johnson Space Center in Houston. They are also taking delivery of the full-size mockup of the Hubble Space Telescope that shuttle crewmembers used to practice servicing the orbital observatory while floating underwater.

[Charles Hunter]

Leaving the turn basin located opposite the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building where external tanks were once mated with the shuttle orbiters they would help launch, the artifact-laden barge set sail by tugboat to the Intracoastal Waterway. It was then to head down the St. Johns River to end up in Green Cove Springs in about 30 hours time, where the shuttle parts will be offloaded for eventual delivery to the Wings of Dreams.

It will go UP the river ...

"We have no major sponsor," he added. "We're looking for one because we have to house all of this."

The Wings of Dreams has already received from NASA more than 40 artifacts from the shuttle program, including the guidance and navigation "single system" trainer, or simulator, that the astronauts used to prepare for missions at Johnson Space Center in Houston. They are also taking delivery of the full-size mockup of the Hubble Space Telescope that shuttle crewmembers used to practice servicing the orbital observatory while floating underwater.

That is concerning, they have all these NASA artifacts, and no stable funding?  Hope these things don't rot from lake of proper care.

[spuwho]

WJXT is reporting that it is currently under the Matthews Bridge.

[TheCat]

taken by the landing.