Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and Texas lawmakers are battling over who gets to keep a huge piece of history. The Space Shuttle Discovery is at the heart of this perplexing and poorly timed debate. In a bill passed by Congress earlier this month, there is an $85 million provision to relocate the craft from Northern Virginia to Houston.
The Space Shuttle Discovery has been on display at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Northern Virginia since 2012. A location where, according to the Smithsonian Institution, it sees around 1 million visitors per year. However, NASA‘s Johnson Space Center Visitor Center wants to house it in a yet-to-be-constructed building on its campus. Some of this $85 million is earmarked for construction, but cost estimates for the project are much higher than that.
“Houston has long been the cornerstone of our nation’s human space exploration program and it’s long overdue for Space City to receive the recognition it deserves by bringing the Space Shuttle Discovery home,” said Senator John Cornyn. Cornyn helped write the bill with the aid of fellow Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Can Texas Take The Discovery?
The Smithsonian is pushing back, saying that just transporting the craft is a logistical nightmare. Getting it to the National Air and Space Museum initially required two modified Boeing 747s (pictured above) that had the shuttle mounted on their roofs. Those Boeings are now considered museum pieces due to their unique history.
It seems that the plan is to transport the Discovery by land and barge this time around. Which officials say will cost more than $300 million and risk damaging it. “It would be unprecedented for Congress to remove an object from a Smithsonian collection and send it somewhere else,” says the Smithsonian, in a memo to lawmakers.
This institution receives roughly 60% of its funding from the federal government, but that doesn’t make the Discovery its property to move. In the same memo, it’s noted that NASA transferred ownership of the shuttle to the Air and Space Museum.
“The Smithsonian does not manage our collections as government property subject to federal property disposal rules; our records, policies, and procedures treat them as ‘trust’ objects subject to Smithsonian control.”
More Complications
It’s gotten so out of hand that Steven F. Udvar-Hazy (the man the building it’s housed in is named after) even spoke on the matter. He reiterated in an email to Aviation Week that the Smithsonian owns the shuttle. Meaning Texas and NASA “do not have a legal right to transplant Discovery to Houston.” He also confirmed that the previously used 747s are no longer operational.
Just because a bill was passed with a provision for A SMALL amount of the funding it would take to transport and house the Discovery, doesn’t mean a state gets to take it. And with all the social programs this administration is looking to gut, how on earth could anyone justify the cost of doing this right now? Maybe we should focus on helping Americans right now and not ridiculous power plays.
We’ll keep you posted on the future of the Space Shuttle Discovery as the situation develops.
