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Museums Lobby to Be Homes for Poor Retired NASA Shuttles

by Caleb Johnson on August 22, 2010 at 05:08 PM

With the final launch dates set for space shuttles Discovery and Endeavour, NASA's next job will be finding homes for these hulking, retired spacecrafts, and for the Atlantis and Enterprise, as well. According to The Wall Street Journal, about 21 institutions have asked NASA for the right to store and showcase one of the four remaining U.S. space shuttles. However, few of them can likely afford the $28.8 million required to ship a shuttle via a jumbo jet, and even fewer have an indoor facility big enough to house a shuttle. The only museum currently able to do both, naturally, is the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. NASA has said that it will give Discovery, the oldest shuttle, to the Smithsonian. Trailing the Smithsonian as likely candidates, the Journal reports, are Dayton, Ohio's National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Seattle's Museum of Flight, and Manhattan's Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Florida's Kennedy Space Center could also have a shot at "landing" a shuttle. In this day and age, nothing warms our hearts like multi-ton steel crafts finding kind, loving, "forever" homes.

Tags: air and space museum, intrepid sea, IntrepidSea, kennedy space center, KennedySpaceCenter, museum, museum of flight, MuseumOfFlight, museums, NASA, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, NationalMuseumOfTheU.s.AirForce, shuttle, Smithsonian, space, top

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