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NASA Announces Final Homes of Shuttle Fleet

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the new-york-just-got-cooler dept.

PyroMosh writes "NASA administrator Charles Bolden just announced the final homes for the four remaining Space Shuttle Orbiters in a ceremony at Kennedy Space Center today commemorating the 30th anniversary of the first Shuttle launch. The Shuttle Atlantis will remain at NASA's home of Shuttle Launch operations — Kennedy Space Center. Endeavour will be displayed at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, just miles from where she was assembled. Discovery will be moved to the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum in Virginia outside of Washington DC — the very hangar that Enterprise now occupies. Finally, the Shuttle airframe prototype Enterprise will be moved from her current home to the U.S.S. Intrepid Sea Air & Space Museum in New York City."

6 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. Bittersweet... by nebaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's good that we have a museum to put these historic artifacts into, but I would prefer that we have something to replace them with. That feeling is more intense when I see either a Saturn V or a LEM at one of the museums.

    --
    Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
    1. Re:Bittersweet... by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sadly, it costs money to preserve. And politicians don't like to give money to projects unless they can get some present-day political mileage out of them.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  2. Ex Astris, Scientia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Enterprise should go to San Fransisco. Future Starfleet Academy Cadets could use it for training & simulations.

  3. I'd like to take a minute to say by WiglyWorm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    NASA needs to be given autonomy... they need to be given a long term goal (a generic one like "set up a moon colony as a dry run for a mars colony, then get to Mars", or "set up a mining outpost in the asteroid belt") and then left alone to decide the best way to achieve that. Having every president wanting to leave their mark on outer space like Kenedy did is irresponsible and leaves them with ever changing goals and a rotating set of tools to do the job. We've changed what vehicles they're supposed to be using two or three times now since they declared the end of the space shuttle. At this rate, an American vessel may never lift an astronaut in to space again. That's not even bringing congressional funding issues in to the mix...

  4. Re:RIP by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The formula since the mid-'70s in almost every Western country has been as follows:

    Make service bureaucratic and inefficient -> observe cost increase -> reduce service levels rather than bureaucracy -> observe service level reduction -> announce that partnership with private sector will improve service provision -> observe cost increase -> reduce service levels rather than profits -> observe service level reduction -> announce that government is a failure -> sell off everything -> announce record deficit reduction -> declare that your country is free from the tyranny of government -> end up with no service at all.

    Enjoy your corporations.

  5. Seattle wanted one...But still gets a win by BearRanger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For the Museum of Flight's new space wing, which is pretty much finished, with an available space for a Shuttle. But instead the museum will be getting a full fuselage Shuttle trainer. In a way this is actually better. The Shuttle can't be touched. However visitors will be able to go inside the trainer. Just as every astronaut who has ever flown the Shuttle has done.