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Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig & Museum facts for kids
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| Established | April 27, 1997 |
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| Location | 2002 Wharf Rd, Galveston, TX 77550, United States |
| Type | Oil & gas museum |
The Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig & Museum is a super cool place in Galveston, Texas. It's a museum all about how we find and get oil and gas from deep under the ocean! This museum is actually built on a real, retired oil rig called the Ocean Star. It's right in the Galveston harbor, near the historic Strand area.
The Ocean Star's Journey
The Ocean Star rig was built a long time ago, in 1969, in Beaumont, Texas. It was made by a company called Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. For many years, the Ocean Star worked hard in the Gulf of Mexico. It drilled about 200 wells along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.
Becoming a Museum
After its working life, the Ocean Star was turned into a museum. The Offshore Energy Center (OEC) helped make this happen. The OEC is a non-profit group that gets money from donations and museum tickets. They spent two years getting the Ocean Star ready. The museum first opened its doors to visitors on April 27, 1997. In 2018, the OEC changed its name to the Oilfield Energy Center. This was to teach people about drilling for oil and gas on land too, not just offshore.
Exploring the Exhibits
The museum has lots of interesting things to see and learn about. You can discover how oil and gas are found and brought up from under the ocean.
- Offshore Drilling: The Promise of Discovery This exhibit shows you how engineers and scientists find and get oil and gas from deep under the sea. It's like a behind-the-scenes look at this amazing process.
- The Hall of Fame Here, you can learn about important people and new technologies that helped the offshore oil and gas industry grow. Some famous people include George H. W. Bush, who was once president, and smart engineers like George and Herman Brown.
- The Pipe Deck This area has huge pieces of equipment that are too big to fit inside the museum building. You can see things like a blowout preventer, which is a safety device, and long drill pipes used to dig into the earth.
- The Drill Floor This is the main spot where the drilling happens. It's right under the tall derrick (the tower-like structure on the rig). You can imagine what it's like to work in this busy area.
See also
- List of petroleum museums