- 4 months ago
In the recently signed "Big Beautiful Bill," $85 million dollars has been allocated to move Space Shuttle Discovery from The Smithsonian to Houston. "This Week in Space" hosts Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik discuss.
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00:00Hey space fans, it's Tarek Malik, editor-in-chief of space.com and on this week in space
00:04we're talking about the big beautiful shuttle plan to move Discovery from the Smithsonian to Texas. Check it out.
00:11It's gonna be big. It's gonna be beautiful. It's gonna be the most amazing shuttle you ever saw and everybody knows it.
00:16So part of the big beautiful bill
00:19included 85 million dollars, which is a drop in the bucket, to move the space shuttle Discovery
00:26from the Smithsonian Udbar-Hazy Center in D.C.
00:30Ooh, you're flying one. That's cool.
00:32Too bad you're not on camera.
00:34I know.
00:36To Houston.
00:38So this came from Ted Cruz and Cornyn, right?
00:42Yeah, Ted Cruz and Cornyn.
00:44I have my reenactment.
00:46So here is the space shuttle in the Smithsonian.
00:49And the big beautiful bill says here's 85 million.
00:52We're gonna grab this and we're gonna take it all the way over here and put it in Texas.
00:56Oh, except that we don't have a shuttle carrier plane anymore.
00:59We don't.
01:00We don't. Yeah.
01:01Maybe we can do it by truck.
01:02Oh, that'll cost two billion dollars.
01:03Maybe we'll do it by barge.
01:05Oh, that's very dangerous.
01:06Oh, we hadn't thought of that.
01:08And by the way, that 85 million dollars isn't just to move it.
01:13It's to create a place for it to live at Space Center Houston, which is gonna cost a fortune.
01:19And if I may add one more opinion, then I'm gonna cut you loose on this.
01:23If you have tracked how Space Center Houston, which I love.
01:26They're a great place.
01:28Have treated the Saturn five they have, which is over on the campus of the Johnson Space Flight Center.
01:35You know, it sat outside for 35, 40 years, really decaying.
01:41And then they finally put it in a building, which is fine.
01:46But it was basically if you've seen those ads for the general metal shed, you know, they bought a big metal shed, dropped it on top and said, here you go.
01:55It does protect it.
01:56But it's a rotten way to display something as remarkable as Saturn five.
02:00KSC did it much better.
02:03And, you know, I realized there are financial constraints and all that.
02:06But what what does that bode for a space shuttle compared to, say, what Los Angeles is doing?
02:11Displaying launch configuration.
02:12Yeah.
02:13So, yeah, for folks, we've talked around it, but we haven't really specifically talked about the details.
02:19But the big beautiful bill, which is this massive, what is it called?
02:23A policy bill.
02:24So for the administration, it has all of these different these different directives and laws in it for for what the Trump administration wants to do.
02:33And in that as part of that kind of omnibus package, Ted Cruz and Corwin of Texas included this measure that would set aside eighty five million dollars for the for the move of Discovery.
02:47Discovery is the most flown space shuttle.
02:50It is the space shuttle, the spacecraft of record in when it comes to museums, which means that the Smithsonian kind of is keeping it as pristine as possible as if it just stopped off there on the runway after its final flight in twenty eleven.
03:04And if I may say, it's the space shuttle that I got to get aboard and sit in the commander's seat of back in nineteen ninety seven.
03:11They never let me touch anything.
03:13Thank you for bringing.
03:14You know what?
03:15That's so much better than flying on the zero G flight.
03:17I knew you were going to go there.
03:19It's so much better.
03:20And you keep lording that one over me.
03:22But that's all I've got.
03:24Well, and you have you have more people coming to your website than we have reading our magazine or come to our website.
03:31You get a far better paycheck than a certain editor in chief.
03:34I know you command the respect of the world and get invited all these cool things.
03:39I'm lucky if I get one one donuts for free.
03:42You know, well, maybe if they move the shuttle, they'll let me touch it.
03:45Finally, I don't know. I don't know.
03:46Let's but that sounds a little creepy the way.
03:48Well, well, that's what I'm trying to say.
03:52I just want to touch it.
03:55Well, the way that they kind of chose, as I recall, because it was really interesting to watch, is that all of these, the Smithsonian, you know, would get kind of like the initial nod to showcase as like the national museum of things.
04:14That's where the Wright brothers plane is one is.
04:18To be clear, as I recall, once something of NASA's comes back to Earth by charter, doesn't it automatically revert to ownership by the Smithsonian?
04:29Well, when they retired the program, when they delivered it to the Smithsonian.
04:33Yeah.
04:34Like it's it's like if all like like with all the museums, it's like theirs now.
04:39Right.
04:40I mean, what I'm saying specifically to the Smithsonian is Apollo capsules, you know, unused engineering twins for the robotic probes and so forth.
04:49Basically, when NASA says, we don't need this anymore.
04:52First rights go to Smithsonian and if they take it, they now have ownership and or possession of it permanently.
04:59Yeah.
05:00If they take it, then they but it's also with like Enterprise at at the Intrepid and Atlantis at at KSC Visitors to Complex and Endeavor at California Center.
05:12Once they have it, they have it.
05:14Right.
05:15It's it's theirs.
05:16It's it's theirs.
05:17I understand.
05:18As I understand it.
05:19And I was talking to our historian friend Robert Perlman about it today.
05:22Like what you're saying is like that's accepted.
05:24You know, they accept it.
05:26NASA signs it over to them.
05:28It's like you're signing over a car that you sold so that you can get a new car.
05:33Oh, except that in our case, it's our new car is not a nice giant winged reusable space plane.
05:37It's a bunch of capsules and a rocket that took, you know, 18 years to to build anyway.
05:44So not that I'm salty about that at all.
05:50Well, can I just insert a point real quick?
05:52Yeah.
05:53Yeah.
05:54So the crews in cornered are like, okay, Texas deserve Houston deserves its own space shuttle.
06:01Damn it.
06:02You sent one to L.A.
06:03You sent one to New York, et cetera, et cetera.
06:05We want ours.
06:06Oh, wait a minute, Texas.
06:08You have the full fidelity mockup shuttle called Independence, used to be called Explorer at
06:15Space Center Houston already on top of one of the two shuttle carrier planes.
06:20It's virtually indistinguishable to the lay eye from any of the other shuttle orbiters.
06:26And it's already sitting on top of this very specialized plane.
06:30One of the two that would have been able to carry it discovery back to Texas.
06:34Were they still flying?
06:35Which they're not.
06:36You have a shuttle.
06:37It's really it's it's big.
06:39It's beautiful.
06:40And it's got a gantry.
06:41So people can walk inside of that one, which you can't do with the other ones.
06:45Yeah.
06:46Yeah.
06:47So you can walk inside it.
06:48I think you can go inside the carrier plane, too.
06:50I haven't seen that exhibit at all.
06:52I haven't had the chance to go inside.
06:54I've seen it from the outside.
06:55But yes, you can go into both decks of the shuttle or see both decks of the shuttle.
06:59Yeah.
07:00From a gantry walkway, which is an interesting thing.
07:03And then you can go all the way through the carrier plane.
07:06Yeah.
07:07As you pointed out earlier, there are two of those carrier planes that we built, that NASA built.
07:10And one of them is there at Johnson Space Center.
07:12The other one, I think, is in Edwards.
07:16Is that where?
07:17Or not.
07:18It's not called Edwards anymore.
07:19At Armstrong, I think.
07:20Armstrong.
07:21But it's mothballed.
07:22I could be wrong.
07:23I could be wrong.
07:24Oh, yeah.
07:25It's been mothballed.
07:26And so we don't use that anymore.
07:28And there's equipment that they used to build to put the shuttle on top of that.
07:33They don't have that.
07:34It takes like five cranes to do.
07:37And so there's a lot of questions about where you would do it and how you would transport
07:43it and get it across.
07:45It took forever to get those shuttles on the ground streets, like from the LAX to California
07:56Science Center.
07:57Like it had to go up a whole bunch of streets.
08:00They had to cut down light.
08:02Oh, major.
08:03I was down there for three days.
08:04Yeah.
08:05They were removing lampposts.
08:06They were cutting down trees.
08:07They actually had to remove pieces of buildings.
08:09When it was here in New York, when they delivered Enterprise to New York, it was at the
08:15airport forever.
08:16Then they put it on a barge and then it had to come all the way over.
08:18Then they had these huge cranes.
08:19It was crazy.
08:20But at least they didn't have to drive it through the streets of Manhattan.
08:23Yeah.
08:24Oh, my gosh.
08:25Can you imagine?
08:26That would have been something.
08:27Wow.
08:28The taxi drivers honking behind it the whole time.
08:30So $85 million is not going to cover like all of that.
08:35You know, like backing it out of the hangar that it's in at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy
08:40Center, transporting it across somehow, getting it from wherever it lands.
08:45To the Johnson Space Center and then building whatever building they need.
08:48It's not going to cover that at all.
08:50Maybe they think they're going to get more money later in the future.
08:53It's not clear.
08:54But the last thing you want to do is start it halfway, run out of money, and then it's
08:59just stuck outside or in a shed or whatever for years to come.
09:04Which is what happened at the California Science Center.
09:07We got Endeavor.
09:09It sat in a metal shed for, what, 15 years?
09:13Mm-hmm.
09:1412 years?
09:15With plans to do something better.
09:17So they have now done the something better.
09:19They excavated and are building this big, fantastic building that will display it in
09:24launch mode with an external tank and solid rocket boosters.
09:28They're not going to have vapor coming out of all the vents, which I had asked for, but
09:32they said they can't afford that.
09:34That seems like a no-brainer.
09:35I mean, they could add that later.
09:36Well, because it makes it a living, breathing thing.
09:39Yeah.
09:40But that structure alone and the engineering and design for it, I think, is up close to
09:47$200 million.
09:48Yeah.
09:49And the $85 million they're going to get that won't even pay for the move leaves it
09:53sitting, I bet you money, sitting outside or in a tent building for the next 15 years
09:58while they figure out what to do.
09:59Yeah.
10:00And the same is true here in New York because Enterprise was supposed to be on its own special
10:05barge next to, they have a submarine at the Intrepid, encased in glass and visible from
10:12both sides of the river where it is.
10:14Right now, it's on top of the Intrepid in what was initially like it's a temporary shelter
10:20that has since become permanent that is protected with the corrugated metal.
10:24Isn't that convenient?
10:25Oh, that's what we really meant to do.
10:27Yeah.
10:28We'll just call it permanent.
10:30And that, you know, that one got damaged during Superstorm Sandy.
10:35Oh, really?
10:36The tail got damaged because of the structure on top.
10:38The tail of the orbiter?
10:39Of the orbiter.
10:40Yeah, the very top, the vertical stabilizer.
10:43Pardon me for calling it a tail.
10:44I apologize.
10:45Oh, God.
10:46So there's a lot of open questions about it.
10:50Now, there was a development yesterday, and we've got another line, John, for this if
10:57you've got room to share.
10:58It is line 26.
11:02And this came up during a Senate Appropriations, a Senate Committee Appropriations hearing the
11:10day before we recorded this episode.
11:11Look, a whole page of text.
11:14Well, the part to call out is, I believe it was Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois during this
11:24budget markup.
11:25And he says that this bill, this transfer bill of discovery, he says, and I quote, according
11:33to Robert Perlman at Collect Space, it's not a transfer, it's a heist.
11:37A heist by Texas because they lost the competition 12 years ago.
11:40Robert said that?
11:41No, Dick Durbin.
11:42Senator Dick Durbin.
11:43Come on, man.
11:44Oh, oh, oh.
11:45So, like, they are trying to take the money out, right, from this Bring the Space Shuttle
11:52Home Act that is in the Big Beautiful Bill and say, like, we're not going to do this as
11:57part of it.
11:58So they're talking actively about pushing against that act right now.
12:02How they do that, I'm not sure, because now that act is law, right?
12:05Because Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill on July 4th, which I think means they have
12:09to execute it right now unless Congress changes the law, which I guess they can do as well
12:15to pull it out.
12:16I'm a little murky.
12:17Somebody, please, listening out there, explain that, how they would do that to me.
12:22So we'll see.
12:24We'll see.
12:25We'll see what happens.
12:26But, I mean, like, that's some strong language.
12:29It's a heist, you know?
12:30And so we'll have to see, like, what happens in the weeks to come.
12:36Because the feasibility thing about it, is it alone?
12:39That ownership point that you brought up earlier, you know, could lead the
12:47Smithsonian to sue.
12:48I don't know.
12:49I don't know what's going to happen there.
12:50But I guess we're trying to see where the chips are going to fall, because they
12:53don't seem that they're already done.
12:55You see the little brush fire in Discord?
12:58Jammer B is saying, sue him, take it to court.
13:01You mean a law just like the TikTok ban?
13:04Danm.
13:08All right.
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