Museums compete for space shuttles
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Condition: 27 years old, 242 million km traveled, somewhat dinged but well maintained.
Price: $0.
Dealer preparation and destination charges: $28.8 million.
So, does anyone want to buy a used space shuttle?
Yes, it turns out. This old vehicle - the space shuttle Discovery - is an object of fervent desire for museums around the country, which would love to add it or one of its mates, the Endeavour and the Atlantis, to their collections. Financing terms can be arranged with NASA.
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The space shuttle Discovery taxis to a stop after landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, March 9, 2011. [Photo/Chinadaily.com.cn via Agencies] |
The Discovery is to return from orbit on Wednesday, concluding its 39th flight and its space-faring career, but it will make at least one more ascent - piggyback on a 747 airplane - to its resting place for public display. NASA will announce the final destinations for the three soon-to-be-retired shuttles on April 12, the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle launching.
Some of the competing institutions have been campaigning energetically.
The visitor center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston hired a marketing firm and set up a website, bringtheshuttlehome.com.
Houston, the marketers argue, is the location of NASA's Mission Control, which guides the shuttles during flight. For the Texans, owning a space shuttle would be "the modern-day equivalent of housing Columbus' famed ships - the Nina, the Pinta or the Santa Maria," the website states.
The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan has collected more than 150,000 names on a petition urging that one of the shuttles be placed there.
"New York City would make an ideal home for one of these retiring shuttles," the campaign asserts, noting that the spacecraft would be "prominently displayed" on Pier 86 in Manhattan.
The Museum of Flight in Seattle has perhaps gone the furthest: This week, it erected the first wall of a new $12 million wing to house the shuttle it may never get.
The museum's "shuttle boosters" website argues that Seattle has "the right stuff" because the Boeing 747 was built there and 27 shuttle astronauts have called Washington home.
Officials at the Seattle museum say they have planned for the possibility of not getting a shuttle and would fill the space with other space artifacts.
No one knows if these efforts, or dueling letters from various members of Congress, are exerting any sway on the top decision-maker at NASA, Major General Charles F. Bolden Jr, who has said that he alone will decide where the shuttles end up.
NASA says that 21 institutions have submitted proposals.
"We're waiting," said Susan Marenoff, president of the Intrepid Museum. "We're hoping."
Other hopefuls include the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the launching site of all of the shuttle missions; the California Science Center in Los Angeles; and the National Museum of the US Air Force, near Dayton, Ohio, which got a boost from President Barack Obama's budget request for 2012 seeking $14 million to send a shuttle there.
"There are more favorites than there are shuttles," said Robert Pearlman, editor of CollectSpace.com, a website for space history enthusiasts.
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