PATHFINDER * FACTS AT A GLANCE

Pathfinder is the nation's only full-scale Space Shuttle exhibit.
The shuttle orbiter was used to test equipment and procedures used for assembling Space Shuttles at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, and at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The external tank was NASA's first and was used for approximately 10 years for main engine tests at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, MS.
The solid rocket boosters were built for test equipment and are 149 feet long, weighing more than 50 tons each. Made from graphite filament,they are much lighter than the steel-encased boosters now used by the shuttle.
The orbiter is 122 feet long, has a wingspan of 78 feet and is 56 feet tall, weighing about 89 tons.
The external tank is 154 feet long and 27 feet in diameter, weighing 33 tons.
Two of the Pathfinder's main engines powered the first flight of the Columbia in 1981.
Pathfinder's right-hand nose cone flew on Columbia's maiden voyage in 1981. Nose cones aren't normally recovered after use but this one happened to land upright. It was found floating in the sea just east of Cape Canaveral.
In 1988 the external tank covered 1,250 miles by barge over the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee rivers to reach Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
The Pathfinder orbiter required three cranes to lift it into place on top of the external tank.
The giant concrete pedestals on which the external tank rests support more than 222 tons of space hardware.