![]() "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." The museum hopes to have all the components - shuttle, tank and booster - together for the dramatic vertical display by 2018, says California Science Center President Jeffrey N. When the tank arrives in Los Angeles by barge, from New Orleans through the Panama Canal to Marina del Rey, it will be moved to the science center along city streets, following the route Endeavour took in 2012, a journey witnessed by huge crowds that gathered to watch the shuttle make its way slowly and carefully to the museum in downtown LA. "NASA thought it was a better use of the resource and gave it to us." NASA initially planned to put the tank on display at the factory where it was built, but the museum "made a better plea," he says. "So this one tank sat there, waiting for a mission, and we never flew another mission that was appropriate for it." Jenkins, the project director overseeing the museum's shuttle display and a former contract engineer on the shuttle program. "We never flew another low-earth science mission," says Dennis R. That $75 million lightweight tank was intended for low-earth orbit shuttle missions, but in 2003 NASA reprioritized its mission program to complete the space station before retiring the shuttle fleet. That's when NASA stepped in with its offer of the only remaining tank, a lightweight version different from the ones that sent shuttles on their way to the International Space Station. That had officials at the science center thinking they'd have to settle for creating a replica.
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