Smithsonian opposes order to transfer space shuttle Discovery to HoustonThe recent passed reconciliation bill included a provision ordering the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to transfer the space shuttle Discovery back to NASA so that it could be shipped to Houston for display, budgeting $85 million for the task.
The Smithsonian however is now opposing that provision, claiming Congress and the President had no authority to do so as it owns Discovery and had not agreed to the transfer.
In a formal response, the Smithsonian Institution says it owns Discovery, which, like the rest of its collection, is held in trust for the American public. The Smithsonian asserts that NASA transferred “all rights, title, interest and ownership” of the shuttle to the Institution in 2012, and that it is “part of the National Air and Space Museum’s mission and core function as a research facility and the repository of the national air and space collection.”
It does appear the Smithsonian might have a case, based on past precedent and the laws that established the institution as an independent entity. At the same time, Congress provides two-thirds of its funding, which surely gives Congress a say in its actions. Moreover, recent court rulings have generally ruled against such independent institutions, ruling that the Constitution does not allow Congress to cede either its authority or the President’s in such cases.
So, even if the Smithsonian should win in court, its funding could be threatened if it defies Congress. It will be entertaining to watch this kerfuffle play out.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The recent passed reconciliation bill included a provision ordering the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to transfer the space shuttle Discovery back to NASA so that it could be shipped to Houston for display, budgeting $85 million for the task.
The Smithsonian however is now opposing that provision, claiming Congress and the President had no authority to do so as it owns Discovery and had not agreed to the transfer.
In a formal response, the Smithsonian Institution says it owns Discovery, which, like the rest of its collection, is held in trust for the American public. The Smithsonian asserts that NASA transferred “all rights, title, interest and ownership” of the shuttle to the Institution in 2012, and that it is “part of the National Air and Space Museum’s mission and core function as a research facility and the repository of the national air and space collection.”
It does appear the Smithsonian might have a case, based on past precedent and the laws that established the institution as an independent entity. At the same time, Congress provides two-thirds of its funding, which surely gives Congress a say in its actions. Moreover, recent court rulings have generally ruled against such independent institutions, ruling that the Constitution does not allow Congress to cede either its authority or the President’s in such cases.
So, even if the Smithsonian should win in court, its funding could be threatened if it defies Congress. It will be entertaining to watch this kerfuffle play out.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Really?
New York City gets a Space Shuttle, but the Smithsonian does not?
The Smithsonian even takes good care of their Shuttle, placing it inside a strong, climate controlled facility, but New York damaged theirs during shipping, then they placed it inside a flimsy tent that collapsed onto their Shuttle during a storm.
Houston is taking the wrong Shuttle from the people who highly deserve one and leaving the Shuttle with the people who never should have had one in the first place.
How are we going to do the painful cuts we need to reduce the deficit, if the people see us spend money on this?
If Texas wants the shuttle Texas can pay for it – the entire move. I see absolutely no reason why my federal tax money – or the money of anyone outside of Texas – should pay one dime for that.
$85 million is a waste of federal tax dollars.
Edward,
Agreed.
What rot. Color me unimpressed with the arguments on all sides over what you want to do with lawn ornaments. Orbiters should have been sold to the highest bidders to fly 4 turnkey commercial space stations based on the wingless orbiter (GD Convair) concept after the fleet was retired.
It was possible to fly the wingless orbiter, plus ET, plus ullage, plus whatever you wanted to put in the payload bay for a fully shuttle compatible 150 ton turnkey man capable (or manned) space platform for $1-2 b apiece. Nobody even wanted to have the conversation as it would negatively impact political support for ISS.
Am I bitter? You bet your bippy. And yes, I remember the Klaus Heiss proposal to purchase a 5th orbiter in 1980 in return for ability to schedule unused Shuttle payload bay volume/mass to orbit. Cheers –
I’m with you agimark.
Couldn’t they get with Brick Price Movie Miniatures and make their own mock-up?
That would be a wise use of public funds in that it would save lots of sets from the dumpster.
agiumarc touches on an interesting line of questions as to why the Shuttle seemingly proved to be such a dead end. Given the march of technology, why was an updated — and safer — Shuttle never in the cards, and why isn’t such an improved design with reusable boosters of any interest to the private sector at this point? As Homer Hickham suggested in his novel Back to the Moon, a modified shuttle could even have taken Americans back to the moon, had anyone really wanted to return there.
OK, sure, it was a *novel*, but could anyone explain why the *engineering* in the story was impossible? Strap on another external fuel tank — exactly as was used in its launch into orbit — once you reach orbit, and you have pretty much all that would be needed to go to the moon and back. (What are the fuel requirements for a transfer orbit to the moon as opposed to achieving low earth orbit? Would a larger external tank be required?) And — wait for it — one of the original Apollo lunar landers (or even a larger version) would have easily fit in the lunar shuttle’s cargo bay. Likewise, the Shuttle carried a much larger crew and consumables than Apollo, which would make for longer duration, more complex missions. Call me crazy, but…
PS — Hummmm. Are the people at the Smithsonian learning to play politics? https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2025/07/31/trump-impeachment-smithsonian/?location=alert
PPS — Edward is right. The Smithsonian should tell Texas to go pound sand.
Milt brings up an interesting point: “why the Shuttle seemingly proved to be such a dead end”
Short answer: They never flew it enough. It turned into the functional equivalent of a hangar queen. As such, there were never any operability upgrades (Block 2, Block 3, etc). Every upgrade made it harder to turn to the next sortie. The fleet was too small, with only 4 orbiters available most of the time. When they blew one up, they purchased another one. Near total rebuild between flights.
The Starship stack will start flying their Block 3 systems this fall after the next two Block 2 tests are finished. They don’t have any more Block 2 Starships, though they may be able to fly the remaining Block 2 Superheavy Boosters a few more times if they want. Even Falcon went thru at least two Block upgrades between the initial successful flight and the current version.
Hangar queens are aircraft that don’t fly enough. When an aircraft sits, the pressurized systems are never pressurized and the seals harden a bit, resulting in more failures of those systems. We see a similar thing in the Prudhoe Bay oil patch which shuts down operations when the temps are colder than -40F. Colder than that and you get a statistically significantly increase in seals blowing due to the cold. A lot of the diesels up there never shut down during the winter, at least working the problem a bit.
Michoud had a proposal for liquid strap-ons for Shuttle that sat on the shelf for years and was ignored with SLS. It would also have been an operability upgrade for both systems. Cheers –
Edward is correct in the first comment to this post. New York City has almost no connection to the Space Shuttle program and never deserved to be given the Enterprise. That decision is even worse considering the care they didn’t give their Concorde after receiving a historic aircraft from British Airways. It sat for years out in the weather until some punks broke in and spray-painted it with gang graffiti. BA was not happy with how the Intrepid handled their donation, to say the least.
If we accept the chosen locations of the spaceworthy orbiters, then the Enterprise should have gone to Dayton instead of New York. Enterprise was used for the approach and landing tests at Edwards Air Force Base, so the Air Force has a better claim to her than NYC. The Air Force Museum is the second most prestigious air museum in the world behind Smithsonian Air and Space. It had a new building for her already planned **and funded** with private donations. It also has the facilities and personnel to do world-class vehicle maintenance and restoration (e.g. the Memphis Belle).
The Intrepid had none of that. It was chosen because Barack Obama liked New York City much more than Ohio. The official reason was that New York City got more *foreign* visitors than Dayton, OH. The cities, yes, but not the museums. The Air Force Museum gets more visitors per year than the Intrepid Museum, but Obama preferred foreigners to Americans, so that was the criterion he used.
Stepping back for a moment, I can see giving Los Angeles the Enterprise. It was built in Palmdale, which is in Los Angeles County and right next to Edwards Air Force Base. I don’t think there’s an adequate museum in Palmdale, and the one at Dryden is small and exposed to the elements, so it being in Los Angeles proper is a good alternative.
After the Columbia accident Discovery was the flagship, so it belongs at the Smithsonian. Atlantis flew most of the Air Force shuttle flights, so it should have gone to Dayton. That leaves Endeavour for either JSC or KSC. Sorry, Texas, but the orbiters were flown out of and stationed at KSC when they weren’t landing at Edwards or undergoing their OMDPs at Palmdale. That’s besides having a far better space museum. KSC should have won Endeavour.
Thinking about all of this again is just ugh. Obama couldn’t even get the small stuff right.
”Given the march of technology, why was an updated — and safer — Shuttle never in the cards…”
NASA had numerous major Shuttle upgrades planned, but the Congress never funded any of them to completion. The only one that got any money at all was the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM), and it was cancelled after just a few years. It was eventually reborn as first the Ares I and then finally flew as the 5-segment side booster for SLS.
NASA did make major upgrades to the Shuttle’s avionics (its main computer and the so-called glass cockpit), Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs), main engine controllers, and thermal protection system (replacing a number of the tiles with thermal blankets that were easier and less costly to maintain). These upgrades did improve Shuttle processing and significantly improve those items’ mean time between failure, which significantly improved safety (the SSMEs and main engine controllers were among the highest safety concerns on the program).
The unfunded major upgrades included the ASRMs (meant to regain the performance lost by switching ISS’s orbit from 23 deg to 51.6 deg), non-toxic OMS/RCS, a redesigned main propulsion system with integrated workstands in the aft compartment, and eventually liquid re-usable flyback boosters. Overall these upgrades were meant to increase the safety of both flight and ground personnel, significantly reduce the maintenance time and cost, and improve the launch cadence.
But it was not to be. In the end Congress was happy enough to just fly the Shuttle 5-7 times a year. It wasn’t going to pay for anything more.
Agimark said
“Michoud had a proposal for liquid strap-ons for Shuttle that sat on the shelf for years and was ignored with SLS. It would also have been an operability upgrade for both systems.”
We tried to get Pyrios–but the SD-HLLV bashers killed it with their noise-machine:
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2410/1
Search for Jarvis on wikipedia–this idea has been around since forever
Milt said:
As Homer Hickham suggested in his novel Back to the Moon, a modified shuttle could even have taken Americans back to the moon, had anyone really wanted to return there.
Homer was inspired by this:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19910014907/downloads/19910014907.pdf
This is actually very close to the Starship refueling plan–see page 17
Another concept:
Cislunar Application of the Space Shuttle Orbiter
Project V1086, J. E. Blahnik; undated (post-July 1971)
attachment to memorandum from Director, Science and Applications,
to Manager, Space Shuttle Program, NASA Johnson Space Center, December 14, 1971.
“To the Moon with…the Space Shuttle ?!” at Secret Projects Forum was a thread by Michel Van–a quote:
Mission
-Orbiter launch in 100-mile Earth polar orbit.
-10 to 12 shuttle flights refuel the orbiter with 444,000 pounds of propellant
(don’t ask me about boil off by Fuel )
-last shuttle flights brings the lunar lander and 3-person lunar crew
Total weight is up to 1.6 million pounds at departure from Earth orbit.
-TLI of Orbiter with 72-hour coast to the moon.
-LOI into Lunar polar orbit
-the manned Lunar Lander is deployed from Cargo bay and lands on Moon
the 3 person make a 3-to-4-week exploration in same Time the Orbiter crew scan the lunar surface
-Lander ascent stage returns to orbiter (with 500 pounds of lunar samples. this stage is returned to Earth and reused.)
-EOI of Orbiter to leave Moon
-Halfway the orbiter makes a braking burn to reduce atmosphere entry velocity
-Orbiter makes aerobraking maneuver in Earth’s atmosphere to further reduce entry velocity
-then from a 100-mile Earth orbit a save return.
So something very like Starship (with tankage outside the airframe) could have been had before Musk—but NASA funding was always paltry.
The Wikipedia entry called “Crew Exploration Vehicle” features a LockMart lifting body for a more modest Moonflight.
A lot of “this one should have gone here, or there”. The fact is, they are all museum pieces wherever they are.
We lost our wish list, because Obama was the POTUS at the time.
I, for one, am not interested in re-litigating the problem, nor wasting $85M on the issue.
If the nation debt ever gets under 10 Trillion, maybe then. In the mean time, no.
Same with the “rebates” from tariff money. Pay the darn debt first. I would rather see that then a one time check, that I will have to pay more taxes on anyway. That is what I voted for.
agimarc and Milt,
I found some interesting reading.
A few excerpts from:
SPACE: AN ECONOMIC FRONTIER FOR ALL PEOPLE
Remarks by Dr. Klaus P. Heiss
October 6, 1986
http://highfrontier.org/oldarchive/Archive/Jt/INNSBRUCPAP.pdf
Our right to a free market was abridged. The basic problem we had in the 1980s. We were forced to rely upon government for our transport to space, and they had limited the availability of launches so that they had to prioritize who got to use their services.
Our right to property was abridged. “Why bother going there?” is one of the most important questions of those who wanted to commercialize space. Trump’s Artemis Accords was written to overcome this problem.
The tyranny of government can occur even to a free market society.
Thus, investors were reluctant to invest in commercial space, except for communication satellites. Communication satellite companies were always profitable until Iridium and Globalstar.
On the topic of a commercial Space Shuttle:
REACHING FOR THE HIGH FRONTIER
by Michael A. G. Michaud
Copyright 1986
https://nss.org/reaching-for-the-high-frontier-chapter-12/
Three people, including Klaus Heiss, had desired to make one Space Shuttle a commercial one. Had any of them succeeded, it may have been disastrous, because the Shuttle turned out to be not as cost effective as expected and could not launch at the pace expected. Could these entrepreneurs have made a profit from a fifth Shuttle?
It could be. Certainly, when NASA was no longer permitted to do any commercial manufacturing, a fifth shuttle, a commercial shuttle, could have done so, and we would already be benefitting from space manufactured goods, such as pharmaceuticals. The value of pharmaceuticals is great enough that an expensive flight once a year could still make profit for the drug companies and the Shuttle launch company. A commercial Titan might have been an even better supplier of goods made in space.
Had there been commerce in space, then the search for more efficient and more effective launch vehicles and spacecraft would have started decades earlier. Rather than starting around 2010, the improvements could have started around 1980, or 1960 if government had not prohibited it, back then.
Instead of being on display as a failed dream, three decades of marching in place in space, these Space Shuttles would be on display as the pioneers of an active space industry that they had been intended to be.