After traveling almost 150 million miles over 39 missions in space, NASA’s retired Space Shuttle Discovery now faces a shorter but more politically treacherous voyage: a 1,400-mile trip from Chantilly, Virginia, to Houston.
The directive to move the shuttle was a flashy win for Texas Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. They secured a provision in this summer’s sprawling reconciliation bill directing Smithsonian Institution officials to move the shuttle from its home in a Virginia annex of the National Air and Space Museum to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
But a campaign to keep the NASA artifact in the Washington area has drawn bipartisan support, and the fight is now mixed up in negotiations to fund the government beyond a Jan. 30 shutdown deadline.
“No disrespect, but moving it to Texas? It’s not likely that as many Americans will have the chance to see it in Texas as they do in the nation’s capital,” Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., told MS NOW.
Morelle garnered unanimous support in the House Appropriations Committee for a provision blocking the move to be included in the bill to fund the Smithsonian along with the Department of the Interior.
But the Texas senators say this summer’s reconciliation law was the final word.
“Nothing’s going to change that,” Cornyn told MS NOW.
As lawmakers search for another government funding deal ahead of that Jan. 30 deadline, Texas Republicans look apt to insist that no funding bill block Discovery from making its journey to Houston — just as some lawmakers want to insist that the next spending deal address the space shuttle transfer.
While the fight is coming to a head in the next few weeks, this is a custody battle that has been brewing for more than a decade.
Texas lawmakers blamed the Obama administration for snubbing their state when it distributed four retired spacecraft to Virginia, New York, Florida and California. When Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, then acting as NASA administrator, approved the plan to send Discovery to Texas in August, Cornyn thanked him for “rectifying the Obama administration’s error.”
Since 2012, the shuttle has been on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center, an outpost of the Air and Space Museum near Dulles International Airport. The two competing locations get a roughly similar number of visitors per year, about 1.2 million recently. But the Smithsonian allows visitors to see it for free, while Space Center Houston, the visitor center for the Johnson Space Center, charges $34.50 per ticket.
Republicans provided $85 million in their reconciliation law to move the shuttle to Texas and build a new home for it. But the Smithsonian has warned the move could be more complicated and costly.
The Smithsonian told lawmakers on Sept. 30 that the move alone — not including construction of a display facility — would cost $120 million to $150 million, describing that range as “the minimal cost” in an email reviewed by MS NOW. The institution also warned that the shuttle will have to be disassembled in order to move it.
“Discovery is the most intact shuttle orbiter of the NASA program, and we remain concerned that disassembling the vehicle will destroy its historical value,” the Smithsonian email to lawmakers said.
Both Texas senators accused the Smithsonian of laying the groundwork for the campaign to keep the shuttle in its possession.
“They’re being less than honest and deliberately obstructionist, and at the end of the day, they don’t get to disregard Congress and U.S. law,” Cruz told MS NOW. Estimates vary drastically on the cost of moving a space shuttle. When Discovery was brought to the Washington area in 2012, it hitched a ride on the back of a specialized Boeing 747 — one of only two airplanes capable of piggybacking a space shuttle, both of which are now out of commission. A Congressional Research Service report noted that a private company offered a preliminary estimate of $8 million to transport the shuttle by ground and barge. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, the top House Democrat on the subcommittee that funds the Smithsonian, said she’s reviewed an estimate putting the cost at “over $300 million,” including transportation and the construction of a new facility. “They have to dismantle the Air and Space Museum out at Dulles to get the thing out,” Pingree told MS NOW. “I mean, it’s just an outrage, for what?” Pingree vowed to fight the move in an upcoming Interior Department appropriations bill, which lawmakers plan to bring to the House floor the first full week of January. “We’re looking into any considerations we can put into that bill,” Pingree said. The other top lawmakers negotiating that funding bill — Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Mike Simpson, R-Idaho — all told MS NOW the Discovery fight is among the unresolved issues in the measure. Lawmakers face a Jan. 30 deadline to fund the government. The Texas senators say there will be no more negotiations on the issue and that the reconciliation law enacted over the summer was the final deal. “That was the end of the matter,” Cruz told MS NOW.
Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from Arizona State University. Recommended
