Keith’s note: This press release came out from Senator John Cornyn about a meeting with Jared Isaacman and then goes into a litany of complaints about retired space shuttle destinations: “Mr. Isaacman committed to follow Sen. Cornyn’s provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now law, to move the Space Shuttle Discovery in one piece from Virginia to its rightful home in Space City.” OK – a summary:
- The bill never says “Space Shuttle Discovery” and you could meet the requirement in the bill with a Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo capsule. Or a commercial vehicle. Or a Soyuz in Washington, DC.
- Moving a spacecraft “in one piece” – well if it is a shuttle either they will have to recreate the 747 carrier aircraft ($$$$) or do major highway modifications in northern Virgina ($$$$). In other words vastly more money will be needed than has been called for to date.
- If the money is not found and or the infrastructure is unavailable then Discovery will not be moving. So you can support the unlikely move but not lose the orbiter at the same time.
- Congress could get more descriptive and add money but at a time when dozens of missions are being cancelled that is going to be problematical.
- Nice summary here at Transfer of a Space Vehicle: Issues for Congress online at Congress.gov
- And of course you should check out the folks at KeepTheShuttle.
I really like that provision: “in one piece” Because, if anything, as long as Isaac holds on hard to that one uncompromising stance, the Discovery won’t need to worry about being dragged out in the open for a haphazard move (let alone being chopped up by some low-bid Texas contractor).
Not that I’d be against Houston getting anything out of this… I am really hoping Cruz & Co. would redirect their eyes over to the Enterprise. Yea, sure, it hadn’t gone all the way to orbit, but it was the prototype that did fly on the carrier aircraft, released, glided and landed dozens of times. It does have a good lineage worthy of preservation, and Houston I believe did have some participation in that program.
AND….I’ve gotten really uncomfortable with it just laying there on top of that aircraft carrier surrounded by salt water. (and I hear it’s not all that well taken care of). That one I believe can be partially disassembled without noticeable disfigurement. Plus, I’m sorry but, New York is not a contributor to the technological and operational success of the STS program! If they want a “shuttle” that badly, Houston can trade their own high-fidelity replica (non-flyable) shuttle “Independence” that’s currently riding atop one of the original 747 carrier aircraft! In fact it’d be rather poetic to have the “Enterprise” together with that aircraft.
The Shuttle wings were built by Grumman in Bethpage, NY, in the former LM clean room. The parallel stage/simultaneous burn Shuttle configuration that was adopted after it became clear that the original design, using a fly-back booster, was unaffordable, was proposed by a Grumman team led by Joe Goodwin and Dick Kline. Grumman sent a large team of engineers, led by Dick Kline, to Rockwell/Downey after RI won the contract (after Nixon intervened) because RI didn’t have an adequate team.
My father-in-law, Phil Jacknis, was very proud to have been on the team at Grumman that designed the wings. He passed away last month, but that was something he talked about frequently for the 28 years I knew him. My husband (his son), was thrilled to be able to take our kids to the Udvar-Hazy museum show our kids the exact component their grandfather helped design.
Easy! We just get Ukraine to finish the second AN-225…
I agree, go seal enterprise for weather/sea exposer and send it by barge to Galveston Bay. After that it’s a short trip to JSC. It’s been done before. Everybody wins.
HOUSTON deserves a real, flight to space, orbiter… We are the manned spaceflight ce ter… Mission control.. All the training.. Engineering.. Etc.. We should have had pick of the litter. KSC and California both played a crucial role and deserve a real shuttle… Put Enterprise in the Smithsonian… Its the 1st.. Made all the test drops.. The pioneer if you will… Perfect for them… And put Discovery in Houston… New York had nothing to do with the space program.. Why do they get an orbiter at all..?? It’s not like they care for it anyway… Like the Concorde… They don’t even take care of what they have.. Send then the mock up one from houston to replace enterprise if they must have some for the intrepid… But whatever happens… HOUSTON GETS ONE OF THE 3 ORBITERS THAT WENT TO ORBIT..
Hello my anonymous friend in the Woodlands, TX – near Houston and JSC. WRT “New York had nothing to do with the space program..” – WRONG – the Apollo Lunar Modules were built at Grumman in New York as were all of the Space Shuttle wings and vertical stabilizers. Just sayin’.
It has nothing to do with if New York participated in the creation of a space shuttle. A lot of states did that doesn’t mean they deserve a space shuttle. I don’t ever recall hearing New York we have a problem. The training was done in Houston Mission control is in Houston. Houston deserves a space shuttle just as much as Cape Canaveral!
So .. you are in San Antonio TEXAS. I see a pattern here. Alabama played a large role in shuttle ops. Why don’t they have one? So did many other states. Well guess what: these things belong to America not any one state. There are only 4 left. Putting one of them in a museum designated and supported by all Americans seems a fair placement. Y’all should be looking at ways to advance the future of space exploration – not wasting money cutting up historic artifacts when that money could fund space missions.
The US government doesn’t have any control over Enterprise. The Interpid is a private non profit. The only space shuttle the Federal Government have even dubious claim over is the Discovery