NEWPORT BEACH : Mock-Up of Spacecraft Gets a Home

A mock-up of a space-station module has been saved from the scrap heap and will become part of the Newport Beach Museum of Natural History and Science, officials announced Monday.

The space module, a model of what will be a future home for astronauts, was rescued through a collaborative effort of the museum, the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and the McDonnell Douglas Co.

The 40-foot-long, 14-foot-high original model of the living quarters of the U.S. Space Station Freedom, which was built by McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach in 1986, would have been destroyed if a new home had not been found by today, officials said.

Museum officials were immediately interested in the module, which they said would highlight a space exhibit planned for this summer. However, the museum couldn’t immediately accept the bulky module due to cramped quarters at Eastbluff Elementary School, where the museum is temporarily located. It is to be moved to a new building in May.

A frenzied search for a place to store the mock-up began Feb. 16 and ended Friday when the El Toro Marine base agreed to house the module in an airplane hangar until the museum’s move is complete and the exhibit space is ready. The module takes up about 2,500 square feet of space.

Even after the storage agreement was reached, officials were still racing the clock Monday to get the necessary city permits to allow transfer of the 15-foot-wide capsule through city streets early this morning.

Transporting the fragile piece of space history requires considerable care, according to Jonathon E. Ericson, a UCI professor of social ecology who orchestrated the module’s transfer from Huntington Beach to El Toro.

“If there’s absolutely no damage, it will just be the most incredible thing,” Ericson said. “It would be like moving an open pillowcase without dropping a feather, literally.”

Museum Executive Director Dudley Varner said Monday that the module, which is open on both ends to allow visitors to walk through the mock-up, will be an important part of future displays.

“It gives you a very intriguing feeling to walk through it and to know that someday there will be six people sharing quarters in this man-made thing floating around in space,” Varner said.

The museum will move in May to either Costa Mesa or Santa Ana. In about five years, officials say, the museum will relocate to its final home, a 100,000-square-foot facility on a 25-acre site at Aliso-Wood Canyons Park in Aliso Viejo.