For Release: Aug. 11, 1995

Steve Roy
Office of Media Services
(205) 544-0034
steve.roy@msfc.nasa.gov

NOTE TO EDITORS: 95-51N

NEW SPACE STATION PUBLIC TOUR STOP OPENS AT MARSHALL CENTER

Visitors to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. will soon be able to see the International Space Station being built. Beginning Monday, Aug. 14, the Space Station manufacturing facility will be added to public tours of the Marshall Center operated for NASA by the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.

The new tour stop, which opens at 10:00 a.m. will allow visitors to view construction of the Space Station living quarters, U.S. science laboratory, and nodes which will connect the laboratories and living quarters when launched later this decade. The Boeing Defense and Space Group in Huntsville is manufacturing the actual flight hardware in this facility.

News media are invited to cover the opening of the tour stop. Boeing Vice President John Winch and Marshall Center representatives will be available at the facility to answer questions about the opening of the tour stop, the role of the Space Station construction facility, and the status of Space Station construction in the facility.

Some 300,000 visitors tour the Marshall Center annually and learn about the center's history and its role in the U.S. space program today. Visitors see NASA's historic Redstone and Saturn test areas, current Space

Shuttle propulsion test facilities, Spacelab training and operations control centers, test facilities for robotic applications, underwater neutral buoyancy simulation facilities, and a full scale mock-up of the living quarters and U.S. laboratory of the International Space Station.

Media wishing to cover the opening may go directly to the northwest entrance of the Space Station manufacturing facility in Bldg. 4708 on Apollo Road.. Media are requested to use the parking area on the west side of the building.