It is one of the largest unsupported structures in the country.

Naturally, its hangar had to be bigger.

This steel skeleton is sheathed with galvanized steel.

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Photo credit

Hangar One measures 345 meters long and 94 meters wide.

Its clam-shell orange peel doors weighed 180 metric tons each and are moved by a 150 horsepower motor.

A person unaccustomed to its vastness is susceptible to optical disorientation, it says.

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Looking across its deck, planes and tractors look like toys.

The USS Macon, for which Hangar One was built, unfortunately, had a very brief service history.

The airship was lost in 1935, less than two years after it entered service.

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After the loss of USS Macon, the hangar was used to park several smaller non-rigid lighter-than-air crafts.

In 1994, the Navy turned Moffett Field along with Hangar One over to NASA.

For a while the public, the Navy and NASA debated what to do with the unwieldy structure.

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Proposals ranged from cleaning up to tearing down the hangar and reusing the land.

Photo credit: NASA

Blimp inside Hangar One.Photo credit

Dirigible U.S.S.

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