posted 10-13-2007 10:47 AM               

From the Barstow Desert Dispatch:
NASA's plans to bring museum, antenna to college detailed

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A piece of space history, a NASA research center, planetarium and Smithsonian-affiliate museum could be coming to Barstow.

At a meeting on Thursday, the Barstow Community College's board of trustees voted to further explore the possibility of relocating the 90-foot-tall Pioneer antenna to a site south of the BCC campus.

The antenna would be placed alongside the college's proposed science and technology building, a facility which would also house a space museum, observatory and several labs for college and NASA use, said Peter Robles, an environment, health, safety and facilities manager for NASA in Pasadena. He and other members of the Center of Space and Technology, which wishes to bring the space center to BCC, gave a presentation to the college at the meeting.

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To move a 90 foot tall antenna

The most difficult part of the plan to bring the Pioneer antenna to Barstow will probably be the moving of the 90-foot-tall structure.

The entire structure would need to be disassembled, transported the 45 miles from NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex to the proposed site south of the Barstow Community College campus, said Marie Massey business manager for Goldstone-contractor ITT Industries.

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The Pioneer Station antenna was the first antenna to support the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's unmanned exploration of deep space. It was the prototype antenna for the entire Deep Space Network and had many of its design features incorporated into later improved antennas. During the course of its operational life the Pioneer Deep Space Station antenna tracked a variety of NASA missions including projects -- Pioneer, Echo, Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor, Apollo, Helios, Mariner, Viking and Voyager.

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