Leave it where it is.
— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) July 14, 2025 at 1:12 PM
The “Big Beautiful Bill” Is Trying To Steal A Space Shuttle [gift link]
The Space Shuttle drips romance. Representing nearly a half-century of human spaceflight—from its conception in 1968, even before the Moon landing, until its retirement in 2011—its design and even its name capture a hope that space travel would one day be commonplace. That before long, the first step to heading to the Moon or Mars would be as workaday as boarding a shuttle for a quick jaunt to low Earth orbit. It proved a beautiful, flawed achievement: Two traumatic catastrophes showed early safety analyses were overgenerous, but the Shuttle did provide the freight and manpower for the first tentative steps toward a permanent spacefaring presence, and all the science that came with it. The craft themselves are retrofuturist works of art: gleaming white above, reverse countershaded beneath, all swooping curves and aerodynamic lines. A stately relic of space-age optimism.
It’s no wonder, upon the program’s retirement, that everyone wanted a Shuttle. Twenty-one museums and institutions vied for the right to house one of the four surviving craft. NASA made its selections based on applicants’ historical significance and plans to preserve and display the Shuttles, and in 2011 the winners were announced. The Intrepid Museum in New York received Enterprise; Kennedy Space Center in Florida got Atlantis; the California Science Center obtained Endeavour; and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Fairfax County, Va., received Discovery.
Many of the cities not selected cried foul, none louder than Houston, home of the Johnson Space Center, which has been “Mission Control” for every single NASA human spaceflight since the Gemini Program. They surely had a beef—I remember being shocked and feeling like New York had somehow gotten away with something when it was picked over Houston—but their efforts to be selected were reportedly kind of half-assed. Still, Texas has never forgotten the snub, and bided its time until the political power to redress it landed in the hands of someone venal and petty enough to exercise it.
Someone like Donald Trump. The “One Big Beautiful Bill,” signed into law on July 4, addresses the old grudge deep, deep within its 900-odd pages. The bill authorizes $85 million to be spent on moving Discovery from Virginia to Texas. It is pork barrel legislation adopted directly from and functionally enacting the “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act” introduced earlier this year by Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.
Rather than settling the vehicle’s fate, however, this is just kicking off a nasty battle between the states, and between the Smithsonian and the federal government. The relocation is far from assured, for a number of reasons…
Baud
At least they didn’t send it to Idaho or Nebraska.
HinTN
“The torture, the torture, the torture never stops!”
Old School
Those are great.
1. For reconciliation reasons, the BBB is vague and calls for moving a “space vehicle”.
2. It’ll cost most than $85 million to move it.
3. The Smithsonian owns Discovery. The government does not.
bbleh
Wait, what? Yet more vague, poorly-thought-out, grievance-fueled kulturkampf in the Big Ball O’ Bullshit? Stop the presses! I’m just sure FTFNYT will run at least half a dozen front-page stories about what an irresponsible waste of time all around it is. Definitely holding my breath …
dmsilev
I’m actually vaguely surprised that the bill didn’t repossess Endeavor (in Los Angeles, donated to/owned by the science museum) and send that to Texas as well. Would have been very on-brand for today’s GOP.
The thing with Houston is that when the original competition to host the Shuttles was held, their bid was horrible. Just going through the motions, basically, with no real plan or funding or anything. Also, Houston badly fucked up the Saturn V that they were given. So, for any vaguely sentient and honest creature (thereby ruling out both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump), it should have been absolutely unsurprising that Houston didn’t get a Shuttle. And there’s no particular clear plan that I’m aware of right now for Houston to receive and properly take care of this “gift”.
jackmac
I had the opportunity a few years ago to view Discovery during a whirlwind visit to the Air and Space annex in Virginia, a facility arguably as great as the main museum on the Mall in D.C. Along with the Shuttle, there’s John Glenn’s Friendship 7 space capsule, an Air France Concorde, the Enola Gay and numerous other historic aircraft and artifacts. If you visit Washington D.C. be sure to take a side trip to this awesome site.
kindness
@dmsilev: Don’t worry. Houston will no doubt park the shuttle outdoors in some children’s playground where they can climb all over it. Texas cares more about our kids than the Smithsonian, right?
Old Man Shadow
How about instead of fighting over the retired shuttles, we give the NASA nerds money to design and build new ones and take back space research and travel from the private billionaire shits for the benefit of all mankind and not just the shitheads who can fork over ten million for a ride to low orbit?
MattF
The Defector article is excellent.
Martin
@Old School: Oh, it’s a lot more than $85M. To start, the plane you see carrying the shuttle is no longer flight worthy. It may not be possible to make it flight worthy because it was cut apart and rebuilt to get it in its current display location. So we’re starting from a point where we don’t have a mechanism to transport it because we had gotten all the shuttles in their presumed final homes.
There’s also the cost of a facility to display the shuttle and the ongoing cost to maintain it. LA raised $200M to get Endeavor to LA and housed in its first incarnation, and another $400M to get it stacked into its new display setting and the structure around it. And that was when we still had a 747 capable of transporting it – it was cheaper then.
Two reasons why Houston never got a shuttle is that:
They couldn’t pull a plan together for how they would display it, fund it, etc. when they were doing bids for homes.
They got one of the remaining Saturn Vs decades ago and completely neglected it to the point that it was nearly destroyed. And while they did do a restoration, the Smithsonian was not going to send another artifact out to Houston without assurances it wouldn’t meet the same fate, so their bid would have needed to be particularly solid. Even if they had matched LAs bid they might not have won it.
Martin
@Old Man Shadow: Well, I mean, it’s not like NASA built the shuttle. Boeing was the primary contractor. You can wrest it away from Musk, but it’s gonna be some other billionaire building it. We’re a WAYS away from the government owning the means of production on that sort of thing.
villliageidiocy
@Old School:
Whoah! Slow your roll, there. The Smithsonian is the National Museum of the United States! It is a weird agency, admittedly both federal and non- at the same time, but items accessioned into the collections are held there, potentially in perpetuity, for US citizens. Moving it to Houston (assuming it is still NASA), legally, would be considered a transfer of ownership from one federal agency to another, and is perfectly legal as long as it complies with the agreements under which the shuttle was acquired. There are rules, laws and standards for this sort of thing.
The BIG question, is who is going to pay for and manage this? Getting it to the Smithsonian and installed at Udvar-Hazy was a complicated and expensive undertaking and I can guarandamtee you that there is not sufficient money in the Big Beautiful Blowjob to cover it. I suggest that the Texans who put it into the bill, Cruz and Cornyn, get their Texas billionaires who benefited from tax relief due to the BBB, pay for the lot and not US citizens or donors to the Smithsonian.
Martin
@dmsilev: They just topped out the building that Endeavor is in recently. In order to repossess it, they’d have to repay the $600M so far donated to get it where it is, tear down the building that is constructed around it (it’s now in a vertical stacked arrangement with solid boosters and a fuel tank – they sourced spare ones to do this) and pay to restore that building to some degree. And that’s before they even pay to move it.
They picked the one at the Smithsonian because it’s on its wheels in a hangar. It’s a vastly cheaper heist to pull off.
villliageidiocy
@Martin:
Yep, a lot of folks don’t understand that maintaining old machinery is a hell of a lot of work, and moving the shuttle is just the beginning.
We are ruled by incurious, ignorant chuckleheads.
Elizabelle
Maybe Houston could get a super duper memorial to the Challenger and Columbia? Because we ended up two space shuttles short, somehow.
Could have lights, and a hologram of a shuttle and everything. [If they can bring back Tupac! And that was years ago.] Maybe even explosions every morning. And maybe not. Easier to maintain! Especially in view of the Saturn 5 whatever happened to that….
Discovery should stay right where it is, at the Smithsonian Udvar Hazy museum complex near Dulles Airport.
Ted Cruz and Cornyn are in DC more than Texa$$ anyway, and intend to stay there, one fears. They can take as many selfies as they want, and use them in their grievance fundraising.
Another Scott
@Martin:
Interesting.
There was an “Air Force One” replica on display at National Harbor (just outside the DC Beltway) for a while a few years ago. It was transported on a barge of some sort (no way it could land there). It was gone after a few months.
I assume they could so something similar with Discovery or the other Shuttles.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Marc
@Martin: They would almost certainly move it the old slow way, by trucks to the nearest suitable harbor facility, barge to Texas, then trucks the rest of the way.
dmsilev
@Martin: All valid points for a normal administration. This one would likely say “no, it’s ours now” and leave the museum to deal with the wreckage (literally, given that the building would need to be torn down, and financially). Sure, there’d be lawsuits, but given the current SCOTUS I’m not sure I’d bet on those coming out in favor of sanity and honesty.
Elizabelle
Shuttles are for closers.
dmsilev
@Marc: That’s also not particularly cheap, though certainly better than “restore custom-built 747”. Moving those things even short distances by road takes a lot of planning and prep work.
Marc
@dmsilev: Unless you don’t really care all that much, so you give the no-bid contract to one of your friends, who may or may not have ever actually moved such a thing before.
prostratedragon
Sign and wonders
lowtechcyclist
@dmsilev:
I’m trying to think of where the nearest port might be where they could transfer the Discovery to a barge. There wouldn’t be anywhere particularly close to the Udvar-Hazy center, given how far to the west of D.C. it is. Fort Belvoir, maybe? Certainly no place north of there along the Potomac. (I don’t know if Fort Belvoir actually has such a port – I’m guessing they might just for ease of shipping.) Anyway, getting the Discovery to a barge would be a non-trivial bit of moving.
lowtechcyclist
@prostratedragon:
I needed one of those signs for my cubicle, back when I was working.
Searcher
@Martin: I assume they also don’t really understand the structure of the Smithsonian Institute and assume they (the Feds) still own the one in Virginia.
Peale
@Searcher: IDK. Based on how Trump put his fingers on the FIFA trophy the other week, if I’m the Smithsonian, I’m right now replacing everything in there with replicas and hiding the rest until he’s gone. You know someday, Laura Loomer is going to show up wearing the Hope Diamond since if its not tied down, he thinks he owns it.
The Republic of Stupidity
How do we know Trump doesn’t want it for himself, so he can have it tricked out and ride around in it while his Qatari ride is being worked on?
I know… I know… the mere idea is ridiculous, but let us not forget, we’re dealing with Donal Trump here…
Comrade Scrutinizer
@HinTN:
MAGA prison reform goals:
Mai Naem mobile
I don’t trust the Texas government to actually look after the shuttle. They’re such grifters and so short term thinking that the shuttle would probably get destroyed in a hurricane or a tornado or a chemical fire.
azlib
Yes, the aviation museum near Dulles is quite impressive. Lot’s stuff there for the aviation obsessed.
Peale
@Mai Naem mobile: It will probably end up in Houston at some car dealership that will use it as a sign.
HinTN
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Indeed, we live in the dungeon of despair.
WaterGirl
@villliageidiocy: Welcome!
Searcher
@Mai Naem mobile: Sold to a private investor group for cash up front, under the same economic theory as when Indiana sold its toll road.
Soprano2
I think I’m living in the tropics now. It’s raining, the second time in three days that we’ve had a downpour in the afternoon. This is NOT NORMAL WEATHER for July!!!
Cliosfanboy
JFC: if you have to move one, move the one in NYC! Leave the one at the Smithsonian!!! alone.
Old School
villliageidiocy:
I was summarizing the Defector article.
cope
Here’s a time lapse video of Endeavour being moved through the streets of L.A.. It gives a good representation of the obstacles involved in moving one of these things along city streets. It’s less than three minutes long.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=JdqZyACCYZc
Cliosfanboy
@Another Scott:
How would you get to the Potomac? It’d have to be moved a fair distance downstream because, while Udvar-Hazy isn’t far from the Potomac on the map, it’s a shallow part of the river, upstream from the Great (and Little Falls) and multiple bridges.
Cliosfanboy
I saw the very first Shuttle flight on the back of a 747 when it was flown into Wright Pat (Air Force Base), and couldn’t see, but heard the last one being transferred to Udvar-Hazy as it flew over Arlington.
Geminid ,
@azlib: I’ve heard good things about the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.
There’s a federal campground at Fort Pickens, across Pensacola Bay from the city. Fort Pickens is part of Gulf Islands National Seashore and it’s one of the nicest places I’ve ever camped. I hope to camp there again, and if I do do I plan on checking out that museum.
Professor Bigfoot
@cope: Thanks… wow, seeing the “United States” on the side of Endeavour made me think about “back when we Americans did great shit.” Sure, we were responsible for PLENTY of villainy; but at least back then we did good stuff, too.
Now it’s all villainy all the time.
Martin
@Marc: Yeah, but I GUARANTEE none of the people who put that provision in the bill has any fucking idea how to do this, or the cost, apart from what the failed bid was.
We move rockets from Michaud to the Cape all the time. Some of the possibility of that is due to how long it takes to make the trip and the accuracy of weather forecasts to make sure it’s not doing that during a storm. The journey from Chesapeake Bay to Houston by barge is WAY longer than a weather forecast allows, not to mention that the shuttle is much more fragile now than a new SLS booster is, so I expect that is a MUCH more difficult and expensive effort than the usual rocket-on-a-barge operation.
raven
@Geminid ,:Fort Pickens is where Geronimo was held.
artem1s
NASA Glenn Research Center deserves Discovery more than Houston given John Glenn’s flight as the oldest astronaut was a historical bookend to his groundbreaking Gemini flight as the first American to orbit the Earth. Even though First in Flight, Ohio which produced more astronauts than any other state was also slighted we never tried to steal one of the shuttles from some other state.
Martin
@villliageidiocy: Smithsonian isn’t an agency, it’s a legal nonprofit – a 501c3. Basically the same as Planned Parenthood, just an educational 501c3 rather than a healthcare one.
Harrison Wesley
Which shuttle is going to Mar-a-Lago?
Spanky
@Harrison Wesley: We’re all outta shuttles. How ’bout a cruise missile?
Librettist
The road to historical preservation hell is paved with good intentions, and never enough dollars.
The state of Texas is closer to sinking the USS Texas than ever funding any of the restoration and display plans.
lowtechcyclist
@artem1s:
Fixed.
Librettist
I read that the US Army is closing more than twenty base museums.
That’s the reality of saving crap in places that don’t have the money, facilities or staff to properly care for collections.
Stuffed and mounted equipment is the first line item NASA will axe when push comes to shove.
artem1s
@lowtechcyclist: Oops! thx.
lowtechcyclist
@Cliosfanboy:
Yeah, it would be fun (for certain values of ‘fun’) to take a barge over Great Falls, with or without Discovery aboard.
There’s definitely no port on the Virginia side of the river north of Fort Belvoir that could handle it, and I don’t know about Fort Belvoir. Would be hilarious if they had to haul it by road all the way to Hampton Roads.
Martin
Another thing to know about Discovery – it’s considered by NASA to be the reference shuttle. The other shuttles have a bit more latitude to modifying them than Discovery has as Discovery is supposed to be as pristine as possible – no replica parts, no modifications to accommodate display, etc. Endeavor in LA and Enterprise on the Intrepid have the most latitude – the former because it was a replacement shuttle for Challenger and Enterprise because it’s not a fully complete shuttle – it never flew. It’s considered a prototype, has no engines, etc. Atlantis is the 2nd most pristine.
Discovery is supposed to be perfect, to the extent possible. My understanding is there’s an agreement that if it needs a replacement component, they get cannibalized from the other shuttles, and the other ones get a replica. That is why it’s the one in the Smithsonian.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@kindness: in this instance, Houston is not the problem.
The problem is the governor and the gerrymandered majority party in that state. Those folks do not want to pay for anything, including flooding alarms that might save the lives of some “crazy people” from “Houston”. You can read it in the transcripts of the Kerr County commissioners.
Since saving lives is “dead in the water” because of cost and annoyance, building a decent museum in liberal Houston is not even a notion.
Jay
Some Wag on Bluesky noticed that DJTdiot’s remake of the White Supremacy House fireplace with the tacky gold, is an almost exact copy of Epstein’s Mansion Fireplace and put up photo’s side by side to prove it.
frosty
@Geminid ,: I’ve been to the Pensacola aviation museum; it’s one of the best. Aircraft from WWI through at least to Korea, biplanes to jets.
The aircraft carrier models were amazing. The Hornet had the stripes on the deck for the B-25s. Those things must have been huge in comparison to the Navy’s aircraft.
Also, a nice exhibit on planes recovered from the Great Lakes, where pilots learned carrier landings far away from a coast where they might get torpedoed.
frosty
Chef’s kiss!
WaterGirl
@Jay: Ick. Ugh. Shudder.
Matt McIrvin
Now that Trump fell out with Elon Musk they needed to find another way to act like Hugo Drax from “Moonraker”, and stealing orbiters fits the bill. Given Drax’s master plan I’m not sure I like where this is going, but maybe the guy with steel teeth will turn on him.
trollhattan
Is Texas getting greedy? The already have Columbia. Go find more pieces, you lazy fucks.
OTOH a perfect opportunity for a Spinal Tap-inspired like re-creation of Discovery to give Texas. Make sure Abbott and Cruz are there for the unveiling.
Stonehenge!
Fond memories of Endeavour’s fly-by on its final journey to LA. They swung around the US West including Sactot. We were allowed on our building’s roof for an unobstructed and the pair flew past startlingly slow, like, how is that staying in the air? slow. Still, over too fast.
Biggest airborne thing I’ll ever hope to see.
trollhattan
@frosty: As a kid I was able to visit dad’s Essex class carrier from WWII. They kept it in service to the ’70s. Very small compared to today’s fleet carriers but to a little kid it seemed more like a city than a boat.
Matt McIrvin
I know the Museum of Flight in Seattle built a whole facility to display a Shuttle orbiter and didn’t get one, but what they got was almost cooler: the Full Fuselage Trainer, a full-scale replica used for training exercises with a fully kitted out interior, and you can go inside it and walk through the payload bay. They were giving upcharge tours of the crew cabin when I was there but I don’t know if they still do.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Spanky: you don’t mean that, unless you mean decommissioned.
Houston metro is one of the most diverse in this world. Approximately 6 million, eight hundred and ninety thousand human souls live there.
Ruckus
@villliageidiocy:
We are ruled by incurious, ignorant chuckleheads.
Not all of them….. OK an unfair amount for sure.
A lot of people have never seen the level of manufacturing it would take to build a space shuttle. I worked in and then owned a manufacturing company for a rather long time and worked in precision metal manufacturing for just over 6 decades. Made molds for plastic products most of that time and all kinds of manufacturing of metal parts for the rest of it. Most often worked to tolerances of +/- .001 or less. Believe me, a big project like the space shuttle takes a lot of time, effort and skills. And MONEY. Much of what I did took months for each project and none of it was at the level of designing – building a space shuttle.
Another Scott
@Cliosfanboy: I’m sure if Cornyn and Cruz clap hard enough it will happen. That’s all it takes, right??
FFXNow.com (from July 3):
Contracts, Shmantracts. Who cares about ownership and the impossibility of moving it. The GQP wants what it wants! Calvinball is where it’s at, baby!!
[ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
bjacques
@Another Scott:
(SCROTUS) Well, it’s Treaty Time!
Central Planning
I don’t think this is really about moving a shuttle. It’s just a grift.
The company selected to evaluate the move will get $85m which will get distributed to the orange turd and his turdlettes.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
Is it just me, or is anything Conservatists have attempts this century been kind of half-assed? Including attempting to swipe the Discovery from the Smithsonian, and on the cheap at that.
villliageidiocy
@Old School:
I’m going to out myself here. I am a former employee of the Smithsonian, and I can tell you with certainty that the Defector article is wrong. Items accessioned into the possession of the Smithsonian Institution are as much the property of the US federal government as books accessioned into the Library of Congress. I like the Defector, it is a great website, but reporters, even well meaning ones, can and do make mistakes.
villliageidiocy
@villliageidiocy:
And Brown is both right and wrong. The shuttle is legally in the possession of the Smithsonian, and no other agency. Whether or not Congress can legally mandate a transfer of possession to another agency is far above my (previous) pay grade.
I was always told that our objects were the property of the US government. Perhaps the legal aspect is more nuanced than I was led to believe but I am not so bold to assume that it is not possible to do this, considering our current courts and the odd kind of agency the Smithsonian is.