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.
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.
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.
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.
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.