Crossing the final frontier: Shuttle fuel tank nears L.A. finish line
Proceeding gingerly in the company of giants, Jeffrey Rudolph, president and chief executive officer of the California Science Center, strode alongside ET-94 and its 42-tire transport vehicle as it began to turn from Manchester Avenue onto Vermont Avenue.
Wide roads at the intersection, roughly six miles south of downtown Los Angeles, provided an especially scenic opportunity for photographers as the 66,000-pound gas tank for the space shuttle scooted through the commercial area of pawn shops, thrift stores and nail salons with surprising efficiency and precision.
Nodding toward the jaw-dropping scale of it all, Rudolph shook his head in amazement and said: “I’ve been watching the thing closely out of concern that all goes well.”
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“With the exception of a few minor delays early on,” added Rudolph, who has planned to walk the entire 16.5-mile route with the tank, “and things are just great.”
As Rudolph spoke, police officers used bullhorns to keep the crowds from spilling off the sidewalk and into the roadway, where crews had earlier dismantled light poles in the tank’s path.
Nancy Smith, 75, had arrived hours earlier to secure a ringside seat: A chair that was part of a dining room set offered for sale on the sidewalk.
“I missed Part One of this story — the space shuttle — when it came through town four years ago,” she said.
“I’m not about to miss the conclusion — the big gas tank.”
The tank took just 10 minutes to navigate the turn and begin the last leg of its journey — a straight four-mile stretch of roadway to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, where it would make a quick right turn into its new home in Exposition Park.
As the tank rumbled north like a huge orange torpedo toward downtown, Eric Finister, 51, tightened his grip on a walking cane and weighed his words carefully.
“You’d think something this darn big couldn’t get off the ground,” he said. “Yet it lifted off of the face of the Earth and soared into the heavens to fetch new knowledge for mankind.”
He paused, then smiled and added, “Look what we can do when we put our minds to it.”
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Twitter: @LouisSahagun
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