Posted on 01/31/2010 6:03:41 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Want the ultimate space collectible? Consider a space shuttle. The orbiters have flown 29 years and have a few miles on them (tens of millions), but soon all three will be up for grabs.
Some time this year—right now it looks like September 30—NASA plans to shut down the program. For all the shuttle’s successes in missions like deploying satellites, fixing the Hubble Space Telescope, and building the International Space Station, flying it was always risky. Two orbiters were lost, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, killing 14 astronauts. Now NASA says it will donate the ones remaining— Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour—to whoever it feels can provide the best homes. In 2008, the agency issued a Request for Information, and21 institutions entered the competition. NASA won’t say when it will ask for formal proposals or identify the candidates, but some have declared themselves, apparently feeling that if you want a national treasure, you shouldn’t be shy about saying so.
NASA made it clear that contestants don’t win simply by raising their hands. Only U.S. museums and educational institutions are eligible. And the gift shuttles will not come with the three main engines, making them lighter and thus easier to transport. (NASA plans to give away six to 10 unassembled engine “kits” to suitable museums.)
Also, you have to display the orbiter indoors. NASA clearly wants to avoid a repeat of the Apollo program’s denouement, when the agency left its three remaining Saturn V rockets to decay outside for decades at its centers in Florida, Texas, and Alabama. These noble behemoths, once targets for pigeons, have since been restored but “certainly there was a lesson learned,” says Valerie Neal, shuttle curator at the National Air and Space Museum, which owns the
(Excerpt) Read more at airspacemag.com ...
Better hang on to them we may need them
I wish I had a bigger yard, I’d put it next to the Saturn V.
America seems to have long forgotten the old axiom, "no risk, no reward".
Why can’t we launch them and put them into a higher orbit. Have their bays full of air and water tanks, link 2 of them together, unfurl solar panels and turn them into a space station??
Can I live in that giant shuttle sled??
Because their toilets are only good for about two weeks or so.
We could put it beside our American legion Post.
I would rather have an Edsel in my museum. A shuttle? Come on! I was a kid when I had the thought “We went to the moon and now all we do is go up and down in shuttles?” We have been a disgrace to the space race since the first shuttle flew.
Those shuttles may be the last manned American spacecraft for at least forty year
— that’s how long it’s been since Americans were on the Moon.
And here is where it ended up — destroyed in 2002 when the Kazakhstan hangar in which it was being stored collapsed.
NASA should donate one space shuttle to the National Duct Tape Museum, because that is what held those buckets of bolts together.
Was this true?
-PJ
It’s going to be lotsa fun to watch the thermonuclear war that’s going to erupt over which museums get the shuttles.
Air & Space is going to ge Discovery, that’s a forgone conclusion especially since they have first dibs by law on any equipment NASA retires.
The Air Force Museum in Dayton wants Atlantis pretty badly (she flew most of their secret spy-sat missions), but given the competition out there them getting her is no sure thing.
Two of the NASA centers - Kennedy and Johnson want one, plus various museums on the West Coast (Evergreen and MoF as mentioned in the article). Intrepid in NYC is a long-shot ... I think geographic dispersion of the shuttles is going to be a factor. With one in suburban DC (Discovery) they aren’t going to want a second one that close.
Most likely scenario is that Congress is going to be pulled in, given that the Congressional delegations from Texas, Florida, California, Washington State, Oregon, New York and Ohio are going to be agitating on behalf of their local museums.
Who’s got a line on popcorn futures?
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