However, that ship has sailed.1. The Smithsonian on the Mall doesn't have the Shuttle Orbiter.2. Nor does it have a Saturn V.3. Nor a 747.4. Nor a Falcon 9.5. Nor a Starship.6. Nor ________.Obviously, it doesn't matter enough for our country's heritage for people to fix these dire situations.
Somebody must have deleted my post. Let's do the non-spicy version.The Air and Space Museum on the National Mall is the US's version of the Louvre. It is where we keep our nation's technological crown jewels and in usual times, it gets about the same number of visitors annually.The Dulles Annex is a wonderful place and the Shuttle display is nice. Very well done. Been there several times. And the Shuttle itself is a magnificent machine. But it is not on the Mall. It gets about 10% the visibility as it would on the Mall in usual times. If it were on the Mall, there's is zero point zero percent chance that Ted Cruz could filch it. He would be kicked out of town. But it's not on the Mall, so he can.If we are so concerned about our national patrimony, we should be very angry that the Mall museum does not contain a Saturn V, the 747, a Falcon 9, a Starship, and other historical craft. That there is not enough room is a pathetic excuse, when it is our version of the Louvre. Believe me, there is enough room in that area for the creative and determined. The architecture in that area is atrocious when not forgettable.But that ship has sailed. If the Shuttle orbiter cannot earn its place on the National Mall, it's tough for me to gather any additional anger for it ending up in Houston where I believe it will have about as much visibility as the Dulles Annex.
It's just not possible to put these enormous items at that location. The Shuttle, perhaps. Falcon 9, maybe. Saturn V, 747 and Starship? No way.
Quote from: RedLineTrain on 11/04/2025 10:03 pmSomebody must have deleted my post. Let's do the non-spicy version.The Air and Space Museum on the National Mall is the US's version of the Louvre. It is where we keep our nation's technological crown jewels and in usual times, it gets about the same number of visitors annually.The Dulles Annex is a wonderful place and the Shuttle display is nice. Very well done. Been there several times. And the Shuttle itself is a magnificent machine. But it is not on the Mall. It gets about 10% the visibility as it would on the Mall in usual times. If it were on the Mall, there's is zero point zero percent chance that Ted Cruz could filch it. He would be kicked out of town. But it's not on the Mall, so he can.If we are so concerned about our national patrimony, we should be very angry that the Mall museum does not contain a Saturn V, the 747, a Falcon 9, a Starship, and other historical craft. That there is not enough room is a pathetic excuse, when it is our version of the Louvre. Believe me, there is enough room in that area for the creative and determined. The architecture in that area is atrocious when not forgettable.But that ship has sailed. If the Shuttle orbiter cannot earn its place on the National Mall, it's tough for me to gather any additional anger for it ending up in Houston where I believe it will have about as much visibility as the Dulles Annex.How would you propose to get a 747, a Space Shuttle, a Saturn V, and a Starship to the National Mall building? It's not at an airport and it's not at a port (turning basin). This is a big advantage of the Udvar Hazy site - it's at Dulles airport. The Saturn V exhibit at KSC is at both an airport (Shuttle Landing Facility) and a port. There's a B-52 is the middle of my city, but it's at a site that used to be an Air Force base.It's just not possible to put these enormous items at that location. The Shuttle, perhaps. Falcon 9, maybe. Saturn V, 747 and Starship? No way.
Quote from: Lee Jay on 11/05/2025 01:59 pmIt's just not possible to put these enormous items at that location. The Shuttle, perhaps. Falcon 9, maybe. Saturn V, 747 and Starship? No way.Moving enormous items is a high art, especially if you are willing to disassemble and reassemble portions. We should hesitate to say that these things are impossible.
We should also hesitate to spend hundreds of millions of dollars disassembling, moving, and reassembling a priceless piece of space history for no reason other than political vindictiveness.
NASA's Kennedy Space Center@NASAKennedyThe U.S. Senate recently passed a resolution “Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the inaugural flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis and recognizing Kennedy Space Center for its economic, educational, and cultural contributions to the State of Florida and the United States.”The first mission of Atlantis, STS-51-J, lifted off from NASA Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A on Oct. 3, 1985. Atlantis flew 33 missions over the next 26 years, including the final mission of the shuttle program in July 2011. In total, Atlantis spent 307 days in space, orbited Earth 4,848 times, and traveled 125,935,769 miles. Atlantis has been on public display at NASA Kennedy’s Visitor Center since 2013.
Once that Starship is captured and SpaceX engineers examine it, Space Center Houston would seem to be the perfect place to display it. Imagine, while driving down NASA Road 1, seeing the gleaming, stainless steel edifice of a spacecraft in which people will land on the moon and Mars. It would drive foot traffic and increase ticket sales unlike any exhibit at any museum in human history.Even better, Musk, public spirited and eager to please politicians who hand out lucrative contracts, might be persuaded to finance the transportation and display of the Starship out of his own pocket. Cruz and Cornyn, who ought to be frugal with the public purse, should jump at the chance.The two Texas senators, eager as they are to snag a flown space shuttle orbiter for Texas, should drop the effort and go after the greater prize of a flown Starship. They will have props both for statesmanship and for the economic and cultural benefits such a decision will garner for Texas. It’s a win/win proposition all around.
Senators Cruz and Cornyn recently passed legislation that includes a provision to relocate the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles to a site near the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The measure—folded into the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and signed in July 2025—allocates $85 million for the project. As someone who would love to see a flown Orbiter in Houston, I admit the idea is appealing. But I also have serious concerns.My biggest question is how anyone plans to move it. In 1976, NASA created the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) specifically because we couldn’t transport the Orbiter safely by road or rail. Unlike an airplane, the Orbiter is a spacecraft engineered to withstand extreme temperatures in orbit. Even after stripping out everything possible, the remaining structure still wouldn’t fit through tunnels or under standard overpasses. That was true then—and remains true today.Unfortunately, neither of the SCAs is capable of flying an Orbiter anymore. That means the only realistic option would be to move Discovery by water on a barge.That leads to my second concern: getting the Orbiter to the water in the first place. The nearest major port—the Port of Baltimore—is roughly 40 miles from Udvar-Hazy. I haven’t mapped every route, but I know the region well enough to say this: the roads are dense, the infrastructure old, and the likelihood of finding a clear, unobstructed path wide and tall enough for an Orbiter seems extremely slim. Even one low-clearance bridge would halt the entire operation.And that brings me to what matters most: the integrity and meaning of a flown Orbiter itself. The Space Shuttle program was one of America’s most extraordinary collective achievements. Thousands of people across the nation contributed their expertise, ingenuity, and passion to build a reusable spacecraft long before modern digital tools existed. Every square inch of a flown Orbiter represents that effort. Its value lies not just in being displayed, but in being preserved—intact—for future generations to study and marvel at.Without an SCA, the only way to transport an Orbiter over land would be to cut it into pieces. Yes, it could be reconstructed. But doing so to a national treasure would be a tragedy. It would be like slicing the Mona Lisa into quarters simply because it made shipping easier. Technically reversible? Perhaps. Emotionally, historically, and academically? Unthinkable.I’ve crawled through Enterprise aboard the USS Intrepid and examined the space-flown Orbiters at the Cape. The differences are profound, and they tell an important story. I want future generations to feel what I felt—to see, untouched, what our predecessors accomplished without modern computers.Finally, if Houston does welcome a flown Orbiter, it must have a proper, environmentally controlled home. Both Space Center Houston and JSC have successfully received large artifacts by barge and could do so again. But what we cannot do is repeat the Saturn V experience—leaving one of the greatest engineering achievements in an open field to deteriorate.I hope we move forward wisely. Some pieces of history are too important to cut apart—and too valuable to display anywhere less than with the care they deserve.
https://spacenews.com/isaacman-opens-door-to-alternatives-to-moving-shuttle-discovery-to-houston/ Isaacman opens door to alternatives to moving shuttle Discovery to Houstonby Jeff Foust December 30, 2025 WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman suggested he would be open to transferring a spacecraft other than the space shuttle Discovery to Houston.In a Dec. 23 interview on CNBC, Isaacman said moving the shuttle orbiter from its current home at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia would depend on whether it could be done safely and within budget.SNIPIn the CNBC interview, Isaacman said he would be open to Houston receiving another spacecraft, such as an Orion capsule, if cost or safety issues make moving Discovery impractical.“If we can’t do that, you know, we have spacecraft going around the moon with Artemis 2, 3, 4 and 5,” he said. “One way or another, we’re going to make sure Johnson Space Center gets its historic spacecraft right where it belongs.”Transferring an Orion spacecraft to Space Center Houston would likely be far simpler and less expensive than moving a shuttle orbiter. Orion capsules are routinely transported by truck and could be displayed in a smaller, less costly facility than what a shuttle would require.
Quote from: Blackstar on 12/30/2025 01:35 pmhttps://spacenews.com/isaacman-opens-door-to-alternatives-to-moving-shuttle-discovery-to-houston/ Isaacman opens door to alternatives to moving shuttle Discovery to Houstonby Jeff Foust December 30, 2025 WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman suggested he would be open to transferring a spacecraft other than the space shuttle Discovery to Houston.In a Dec. 23 interview on CNBC, Isaacman said moving the shuttle orbiter from its current home at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia would depend on whether it could be done safely and within budget.SNIPIn the CNBC interview, Isaacman said he would be open to Houston receiving another spacecraft, such as an Orion capsule, if cost or safety issues make moving Discovery impractical.“If we can’t do that, you know, we have spacecraft going around the moon with Artemis 2, 3, 4 and 5,” he said. “One way or another, we’re going to make sure Johnson Space Center gets its historic spacecraft right where it belongs.”Transferring an Orion spacecraft to Space Center Houston would likely be far simpler and less expensive than moving a shuttle orbiter. Orion capsules are routinely transported by truck and could be displayed in a smaller, less costly facility than what a shuttle would require.Far simpler? Orders of magnitude simpler. Possibly three orders of magnitude.
