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Museums scramble for retiring space shuttles
NASA has set the date for the last Space Shuttle launch at February 26, 2011, and as an era comes to a close, museums around the country are fighting to get their hands on one of the retiring vessels.The Space Shuttle Discovery is earmarked for the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. It has graciously agreed to give up the shuttle it already has--the Enterprise, which was used for testing but never flew into space. Besides the Enterprise, Shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour will also be available for museums.
The scramble for a Shuttle has not always been polite. A total of twenty-one institutions in almost as many states are competing for them, and Congressmen from Florida and Texas tried to get wording put in NASA's latest funding bill that would give their states preferential treatment. The House Committee on Science and Technology rejected that move.
What museums do you think should get a shuttle? Give us your vote in the comments section!
Photo of the Space Shuttle Atlantis taken from above courtesy of NASA.
Filed under: North America, United States, Transportation, News
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom Anderson Jul 25th 2010 5:23PM
By all means Johnson Space Center should receive one and be displayed at the NASA center along with other space craft. It is from this program center that the space craft are directed in flight through all their problems and accomplishments. It is also the location home of the space program and where most of the astronauts live and have trained for the program. The existing museum and display site along with the operational space flight center is an excellent educational experience that follows the history of space flight through the Apollo space program and the subsequent schuttle program. It is logical to believe that the Johnson Space Center will continue to play a major role in what ever comes next. This can be a continuation of that experience, as it is not economically feasible to justify building a new center for our continuing space efforts.
For these same reasons Kennedy Space Center is probably a second likely option. While other NASA locations have been very important in the overall program including both California and Alabama. It is the Texas and Florida sites that are most associated with the space schuttle program.
Kyle Jul 26th 2010 2:26AM
I've been to the Kennedy Space Center and Smithsonian Air & Space museum, and feel they would be most worthy recipients. The museum in the running you've probably never heard of is the Hutchinson, KS Cosmosphere (www.cosmo.org). It's been an official NASA restorer of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo modules, and is the final resting place of the Liberty Bell 7 and Apollo 13 modules. You can get up close and personal with an SR-71, see the only Russian space suit in the Western Hemisphere, a flown Russian Vostok module, and see a full replica of the Lunar Lander and go-cart, 24K gold foil and all. Naysayers should withhold comment until having made a worthwhile journey to what will seem the middle of nowhere. Unless you really like wheat and grain silos. It'll take most of a day to read all the displays from the V-1 buzz bomb (not a replica) on forward through launch-ready backup Sputnik satellite and into the current space program. I don't work there, never have, never will. I'm am a Kansas native who's been going there off and on since it opened over two decades ago.