The journey began early Sunday when crews delicately pushed the 15-story space shuttle fuel tank from its outdoor perch outside NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility onto an ocean barge bound for Los Angeles.

These were the first tiny steps in what will ultimately be a giant leap for the rust-colored behemoth dubbed ET-94.

The tank — the last flight-qualified external tank in existence — will travel by barge, traverse the Panama Canal, dock in Marina del Rey and drive along Los Angeles streets before arriving next month at the California Science Center, where it will be permanently displayed with the shuttle Endeavour.

1 / 21 A view of the rust-colored behemoth external tank, dubbed ET-94, is shown leaving its longtime home at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 21 A tugboat named Miss Gloria pulls a barge with ET-94. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 21 The external fuel tank dubbed ET-94 travels on the Intracoastal Waterway. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 21 A view of the rust-colored behemoth external tank, dubbed ET-94, is shown leaving its longtime home at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 21 Justin Rohlf, junior rigger with Emmett International in front of the external tank. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 21 A tugboat named Miss Gloria pulls a barge with ET-94. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 21 A barge is moored with the space shuttle fuel tank. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 21 Dr. Jeanette Epps, a NASA astronaut, speaks at the external tank title transfer ceremony in the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center at the Michaud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 21 Members of the Coast Guard Color Guard, from left, Yeoman 2nd Class Tiffany Patrick, from left, Seaman Yariel Quintana Hernandez, Seaman Joshua James and Storekeeper 2nd Class Kamal Packer at the title transfer ceremony. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 21 The space shuttle program’s last flight-qualified external fuel tank in existence has taken the first steps in what will be a grand sea voyage to Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 21 Charlie Prebble keeps a watchful eye on the external fuel tank, a rust-colored behemoth dubbed ET-94, as it’s rolled from Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to an awaiting ocean barge. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 21 ET-94 is the sister external tank for the space shuttle Columbia. It was built in 2001 and never used. On Tuesday, it is scheduled to set sail from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 21 The space shuttle program’s last flight-qualified external fuel tank in existence has taken the first steps in what will be a grand sea voyage to Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 21 An ariel view of the external fuel tank. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 21 “This is the piece we were least sure we were going to get,” said California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph. “The last piece of our shuttle stack. What I’m feeling good about is that it looks good out here, but people are going to be so excited about it in L.A.” (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 21 The space shuttle program’s last flight-qualified external fuel tank in existence has taken the first steps in what will be a grand sea voyage to Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 21 Workers in hard hats walked alongside the 66,000-pound tank as it crawled along Saturn Boulevard to a dock. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 21 Dennis Jenkins gets a close up look of the space shuttle fuel tank. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 21 The other external fuel tanks detached from the shuttles after takeoff and ended up in the atmosphere. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 21 The space shuttle program’s last flight-qualified external fuel tank in existence has taken the first steps in what will be a grand sea voyage to Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 21 Kenneth Phillips, aerospace curator at California Science Center smiles as the shuttle fuel tank passes by. The tank is slated to arrive in L.A. in May. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)


“That’s awesome,” NASA spokesman Chip Howat said to himself when the diesel engines started roaring on the pushback tractor that would inch the tank forward. “Here we go.”

Sitting atop large, wheeled dollies, the 66,000-pound tank crept across the Michoud property, traveling along Saturn Boulevard with a crew of hard-hat-wearing workers walking along both sides, maneuvering the wheels with remote controls.

Beneath a bright blue sky, ET-94 passed through open fields blooming with wildflowers. NASA officials warned those on hand to watch for snakes and crocodiles, and they weren’t kidding.

View of the orange @casciencecenter space shuttle external tank from a plane in New Orleans at @NASA pic.twitter.com/tKDg2l9XBd — Hailey Branson-Potts (@haileybranson) April 11, 2016


California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph, standing atop a grassy hill, smiled widely as the tank passed below.

“It’s really cool,” he said. “This is the piece we were least sure we were going to get. The last piece of our shuttle stack. What I’m feeling good about is that it looks good out here, but people are going to be so excited about it in L.A.”

NASA agreed last year to donate ET-94, called a lightweight tank, to the science center. It is the last of its kind for good reason: the external tanks, which attach to the shuttle’s belly, detached and burned up in the atmosphere shortly after liftoff.

ET-94, the “sister” to the space shuttle Columbia’s external tank, was built at Michoud and completed in 2001, but it was never used.


The Columbia burned up on reentry in 2003, killing the seven astronauts on board. The mission was doomed when a piece of foam broke off the external tank during launch, causing catastrophic damage to the shuttle. ET-94 was used extensively to study what went wrong, with pieces of its foam dissected and analyzed to understand how it behaved.

ET-94 could hold up to 1.6 million pounds of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and thrust the shuttle into outer space with astonishing force. On Sunday, it took more than an hour for it to roll a mile to a Michoud dock.

At the dock, where there was an Endeavour flag flapping in the wind, the tank was slowly driven over steel plates onto an ocean barge called Gulfmaster I. A white “work tug” boat that helped push the barge against the dock was dubbed the Dani Lynn.

× The space shuttle Endeavour made its final journey last weekend traveling 12-miles from Los Angeles International Airport, through Inglewood, to the California Science Center near downtown Los Angeles.


The tank’s transporter will be chained and secured to the barge before Tuesday, when it is scheduled to set sail. It will be launched into the Intracoastal Waterway, where it will be pushed by a river tugboat, and then out to the Gulf of Mexico, where the river tug will be replaced by a 96-foot ocean tugboat.

Bobby Watkins, the director of the Michoud facility, called Sunday a “bittersweet day” as he stood near the dock, in the shadow of the tank. For years, when he’d give tours of the facility, where so many important space shuttle pieces had been built, he’d point to the big tank outside. People’s faces would light up. They’d take photographs with it.

Watkins will certainly miss seeing it. But he said he knows future generations will be inspired by it in Los Angeles.

“This is a piece of our history from a NASA program, a very key piece of our history,” Watkins said. “You think of all the thousands of men and women that actually worked on it, it’s very emotional.”


hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybranson

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