WASHINGTON They've racked up a lot of mileage and their $28.8 million price - sans engines - should be enough to cause sticker shock. But that isn't stopping institutions from Chicago to Los Angeles from engaging in a new space race to land one of the soon-to-be-retired space shuttles. Twenty-one institutions are in fierce competition for what one museum director called the rarest of space artifacts. They've enlisted former astronauts and high-flying officials to back their bids for one of three orbiters.
Lawmakers have even tried to use congressional legislation to give their states a leg up. "Like anything rare, the orbiters will be hugely popular attractions," said Valerie Neal, space history curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. They are the most significant space artifacts to become available since the Apollo and Skylab command modules in the 1970s, Neal said.
Florida, where the shuttle is launched, and Texas, home to mission control, say they deserve one. Ohio says it should get one because it was the home of the Wright brothers. New York City says it should get one because it can draw the biggest crowds. At least three museums in Southern California, with its aerospace heritage, say they should get one.
Chicago's Adler Planetarium is competing, as are institutions in Seattle, Tulsa, Huntsville, Ala., and McMinnville, Ore., home of another big flying machine: the Spruce Goose. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has final say over who will receive one of the shuttles, which one bidder called "the modern-day equivalent of housing Columbus' famed ships - the Nina, the Pinta or the Santa Maria."
No date has been set for a decision, but the shuttle, workhorse of the space program for three decades, is scheduled to make its final space flight next year. NASA wants to retire the shuttle fleet so it can use more of its $19 billion budget to develop a new line of spacecraft that one day could visit Mars. Earlier this year, Obama challenged NASA to put astronauts on a nearby asteroid by 2025.
The space agency plans to send Discovery to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, leaving Atlantis and Endeavour up for grabs. Enterprise, the test orbiter displayed at the Smithsonian, is expected to be made available to another institution.
Winning bidders each must come up with $28.8 million to cover preparation and delivery costs. But bidders see a potential economic boon to their communities from landing a shuttle, not to mention a big payload of prestige. NASA has asked bidders to describe the "benefit to the nation" from their receiving a shuttle, including how they would use an orbiter to "inspire the American public and students." Bidders must convince NASA they can get a shuttle with a wing span of 78 feet to their facility, seemingly no easy task for a facility like the California Science Center in the middle of a metropolitan area.
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