- 2 days 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
00:15knows it.
00:16So part of the big beautiful bill
00:20included 85 million dollars, which is a drop in the bucket, to move the space shuttle Discovery
00:26from the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center in D.C.
00:30Ooh, you're flying one. That's cool.
00:33Too bad you're not on camera.
00:35I know.
00:36To Houston.
00:38So this came from Ted Cruz and Cornyn, right?
00:43Yeah, Ted Cruz and Cornyn.
00:45I 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.
01:04Maybe we'll do it by barge.
01:05Oh, that's very dangerous.
01:07Oh, we hadn't thought of that.
01:09And 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.
01:18Yeah.
01:18Which 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.
01:31Oh, yes.
01:31Which is over on the campus of the Johnson Space Flight Center.
01:35You know, it sat outside for 35, 40 years, really decaying.
01:42And then they finally put it in a building, which is fine.
01:47But it was basically if you've seen those ads for the general metal shed, you know, they bought a big
01:53metal shed, dropped it on top and said, here you go.
01:56It does protect it.
01:57But it's a rotten way to display something as remarkable as Saturn five.
02:02KSC did it much better.
02:03And, you know, I realized there are financial constraints and all that.
02:06But what does that bode for a space shuttle compared to, say, what Los Angeles is doing, displaying a launch
02:12configuration?
02:13Yeah.
02:14So, 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, a policy bill for the administration?
02:27It has all of these different directives and laws in it for what the Trump Admission wants to do.
02:33And in that, as part of that kind of omnibus package, Ted Cruz and Corwin of Texas included this measure
02:43that would set aside $85 million for the move of Discovery.
02:47Discovery is the most flown space shuttle.
02:50It is the space shuttle, the spacecraft of record when it comes to museums, which means that the Smithsonian kind
02:57of is keeping it as pristine as possible, as if it just stopped off on the runway after its final
03:02flight in 2011.
03:05And if I may say, it's the space shuttle that I got to get aboard and sit in the commander's
03:10seat of back in 1997.
03:11They never let me touch anything.
03:14Thank you for bringing.
03:15You know what?
03:15That's so much better than flying on the zero G flight.
03:18I knew you were going to go there.
03:19It's so much better.
03:20And you keep lording that one over me.
03:23But that's all I've got.
03:25Well, and you have you have more people coming to your website than we have reading our magazine or come
03:30to our website.
03:31You get a far better paycheck than a certain editor in chief I know.
03:36You command the respect of the world and get invited to all these cool things.
03:39I'm lucky if I get some stale donuts for free.
03:43You know?
03:43Well, maybe if they move the shuttle, they'll let me touch it finally.
03:45I don't know.
03:46I don't know.
03:47But that sounds a little creepy the way.
03:49Well, well, what I'm trying to say is...
03:53I 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
04:04all of these, the Smithsonian, you know, would get kind of like the initial nod to showcase as like the
04:12national museum of things.
04:14That's where the Wright Brothers plane is.
04:17But excuse me.
04:18One is.
04:19To be clear, as I recall, once something of NASA's comes back to Earth, by charter, doesn't it automatically revert
04:27to ownership by the Smithsonian?
04:29Well, when they retired the program, when they delivered it to the Smithsonian.
04:34Yeah.
04:35Like it's like, like with all the museums, it's like theirs now, right?
04:40I mean, what I'm saying specifically to the Smithsonian is Apollo capsules, you know, unused engineering twins for the robotic
04:49probes and so forth.
04:50Basically, when NASA says, we don't need this anymore, first rights go to Smithsonian.
04:54And if they take it, they now have ownership and or possession of it permanently.
05:00Yeah, if they take it, then they, but it's also with like Enterprise at the Intrepid and Atlantis at KSC
05:10Visitors to Complex and Endeavor at California Science Center.
05:13Once they have it, they have it, right?
05:15It's theirs.
05:16It's theirs.
05:17It's theirs.
05:18As I understand it, and I was talking to our historian friend Robert Perlman about it today, like what you're
05:23saying is like that's accepted.
05:25You know, they accept it.
05:27NASA 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, our new car is not a nice giant winged reusable space plane.
05:38It's a bunch of capsules and a rocket that took, you know, 18 years to build.
05:44Anyway, so not that I'm salty about that at all.
05:51Well, can I just insert a point real quick?
05:53Yeah.
05:53Yeah.
05:55So the crews in cornered are like, okay, Texas deserve, Houston deserves its own space shuttle.
06:01Damn it.
06:02You sent one to LA, you 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 mock-up shuttle called Independence, used to be called Explorer, at Space Center Houston already,
06:17on top of one of the two shuttle carrier planes.
06:21It's virtually indistinguishable to the lay eye from any of the other shuttle orbiters.
06:27And it's already sitting on top of this very specialized plane.
06:31One of the two that would have been able to carry it discovery back to Texas, where they still flying,
06:35which they're not.
06:36You have a shuttle.
06:37It's really, it's big.
06:39It's beautiful.
06:40And it's got a gantry so people can walk inside of that one, which you can't do with the other
06:45ones.
06:45Yeah.
06:46Yeah.
06:46Yeah.
06:47You can walk inside it.
06:48I think you can go inside the carrier plane too.
06:50I haven't seen that exhibit at all.
06:53I haven't had the chance to go inside.
06:54It looks really cool.
06:55I'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.
07:04And then you can go all the way through the carrier plane.
07:07Yeah.
07:07As you pointed out earlier, there are two of those carrier planes that we built, that NASA built.
07:11And one of them is there at Johnson Space Center.
07:13The other one, I think, is in Edwards.
07:17Is that where?
07:17It's not called Edwards anymore.
07:19At Armstrong, I think.
07:21But it's mothballed.
07:22I could be wrong.
07:23I could be wrong.
07:24It's been mothballed.
07:25And 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 it and
07:44get it across.
07:45I mean, it took forever to get those shuttles on the ground streets from the LAX to California Science Center.
07:57Like it had to go up a whole bunch of streets.
08:01They had to cut down light lampposts.
08:03I was down there for three days.
08:05Yeah.
08:05They were removing lampposts.
08:06They were cutting down trees.
08:08They actually had to remove pieces of buildings.
08:10When it was here in New York, when they delivered Enterprise to New York, it was at the airport forever.
08:16Then they put it on a barge and then it had to come all the way over.
08:19Then they had these huge cranes.
08:20It was crazy.
08:20But at least they didn't have to drive it through the streets of Manhattan.
08:23Yeah.
08:24Oh, my gosh.
08:24Can you imagine?
08:25Wow.
08:27The 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 Center, transporting it
08:42across somehow,
08:43getting it, you know, from wherever it lands to the Johnson Space Center and then building whatever building they need.
08:49It's not going to cover that at all.
08:51Maybe 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 just
09:00stuck outside or in a shed or whatever for years to come.
09:04Well, which is what happened at the California Science Center.
09:07We got Endeavor.
09:09It sat in a metal shed for, what, 15 years?
09:14Mm-hmm.
09:1412 years?
09:16With plans to do something better.
09:17So they have now done the something better.
09:20They excavated and are building this big fantastic building that will display it in launch mode with an external tank
09:27and solid rocket boosters.
09:28They're not going to have vapor coming out of all the vents, which I had asked for, but they said
09:33they can't afford that.
09:35That seems like a no-brainer.
09:36I mean, they could add that later.
09:37Well, because it makes it a living, breathing thing.
09:40Yeah.
09:40Yeah.
09:41But that structure alone and the engineering and design for it I think is up close to $200 million.
09:48Yeah.
09:49So the $85 million they're going to get that won't even pay for the move leaves it sitting, I bet
09:54you money, sitting outside or in a tent building for the next 15 years while they figure out what to
09:59do.
09:59Yeah, and 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 both sides of the
10:13river where it is.
10:14Right now it's on top of the Intrepid in what was initially like it's a temporary shelter that has since
10:21become permanent that is, you know, 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?
10:40Of the orbiter, yeah, the very top, the vertical stabilizer.
10:43Pardon me for calling it a tail.
10:44I apologize.
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 you've got room to share.
10:59It is line 26.
11:03And this came up during a Senate Appropriations, a Senate Committee Appropriations hearing the day before we recorded this episode.
11:12Ooh, look, a whole page of text.
11:14Well, the part to call out is, I believe it was Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois during this budget markup.
11:25And he says that this bill, this transfer bill of discovery, he says, and I quote, according to Robert Perlman
11:34at Collect Space, it's not a transfer.
11:36It's a heist, a heist by Texas because they lost the competition 12 years ago.
11:41Robert said that?
11:42No, Dick Durbin.
11:43Senator Dick Durbin.
11:44Come on, man.
11:45Oh, oh, oh.
11:47So, like, they are trying to take the money out, right, from this Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act that
11:53is in the big, beautiful bill, and say, like, we're not going to do this as part of it.
11:58So they're talking actively about pushing against that act right now.
12:03How 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 to execute it right
12:11now unless Congress changes the law, which I guess they can do as well to pull it out.
12:16I'm a little murky.
12:18Somebody, please, listening out there, explain that, how they would do that to me.
12:24So we'll see.
12:25We'll see.
12:25We'll see what happens.
12:27But, 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 Smithsonian to sue.
12:48I don't know.
12:49I don't know what's going to happen there.
12:51But I guess we're trying to see where the chips are going to fall, because they don't seem that they're
12:54already done.
12:55Do you see the little brush fire in Discord?
12:59Jammer B is saying, sue him, take it to court.
13:02Yeah.
13:02You mean a law, just like the TikTok ban?
13:04Hey, man.
13:05OK.
13:06Let's see.
13:09We'll see.
13:10Bye.
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