After glitches and delays, Endeavour finally reaches its new home “It was built for orbital speeds approaching five miles per second, but space shuttle Endeavour took its own sweet time Sunday as it wheeled triumphantly onto the grounds of its new home, the California Science Center. “Mission 26 — mission accomplished,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced, amid the cheers of thousands of spectators. Before it was retired by NASA, […]

NASA transferred space shuttle Discovery to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum during a ceremony Thursday, April 19, at the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va.

Museum Seeks State Money for Space Shuttle’s Home, NY Times “Officials of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan have taken their pitch for government support of the proposed museum out from behind closed doors. … But now they hope to build a 75,000-square-foot building across the West Side Highway that would include laboratories for teaching science to children as well as retail space and a rooftop cafe, […]

Dayton City Paper Donates Full Page Ad to Space Shuttle Enterprise Petition Effort “The quest to land retired Space Shuttle Enterprise at the National Museum of the United States Air Force received a major boost when Paul Noah, the publisher of the Dayton City Paper, donated a full page ad supporting the White House petition effort in the Oct. 18th LWV voters guide issue. The petition launched two weeks ago, […]

Houston delegation wants a new shot at shuttle, Houston Chronicle “The museum does not own the land where it hopes to display the Enterprise, a parking lot across the busy West Side Highway owned by the New York State Department of Transportation. Nor does the museum have the zoning change that would be needed to build and operate a museum on land reserved for industrial manufacturing. “It’s obvious New York […]

A closer look at Houston’s shuttle snub, KTRK “He awarded the shuttles using a point system that gave no points for connection to space despite its inclusion in the law. But gave 20 percent of all points to international access — meaning how many international tourists could see the shuttle. That’s nowhere in the law. “He essentially said, ‘I care more about foreign tourists than I do about the community […]

NASA OIG Review of NASA’s Selection of Display Locations for the Space Shuttle Orbiters “The Administrator’s decision, while greeted with excitement at the chosen locations, was not well received in some quarters, particularly by members of Congress and others who supported Space Center Houston in Houston, Texas, and the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (Air Force Museum) in Dayton, Ohio. Members of these groups raised concerns that in […]

Making Do With a Plywood Spaceship, New York Times “Q. What was your response when NASA announced its decision? A. A shuttle would have been our first choice. I won’t pretend we’re not disappointed, but we’re moving forward. Q. What are the plans for the Space Gallery? A. We will have a full-size mockup of the space shuttle — a full fuselage shuttle trainer. It looks exactly like the shuttle […]

Obama to reporter: ‘Let me finish my answers’ next time, The Oval (with video) “Obama also bristled at claims that is administration skipped Houston in the award of space shuttle orbiters and favored states that could help his re-election. “That’s wrong,” the president stated. “That had nothing to do with it; the White House had nothing to do with it.” When Watson persisted, Obama said, “I just said that was […]

Letter from Texas House Delegation to NASA Administrator Bolden About Shuttle Decision “It is our hope that politics did not play a role in this historic decision. If there is no rational explanation based on definable factors for the choice of the Intrepid museum in New York City, and that the transfer of the Enterprise to that location will cost significantly more than a transfer to the Johnson Space Center […]