(no subject)

[gfish]

(This is mostly just another test, I admit.)

So, the remaining Shuttle fleet was divied up today.

• Discovery goes to the Smithsonian, Udvar Hazy Center at Dulles, where it will replace the Enterprise. No surprise there, and it is only right and proper.


• Atlantis goes to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Which I guess was inevitable, but I'm not particularly happy about. I was at KSC last year during a launch, and it was a lousy tourist destination. I can't imagine it's going to get much better now. Seems like mostly a political gesture to me, as 7k people there are about to be out of a job when the program ends.


• Endeavour is going to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. I'm glad the west coast got one, at least, and I understand that California has much greater connections to the Shuttle program than Seattle did. But I really wanted our Museum of Flight to get one.


• And the Enterprise will be going to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in NYC. This one is a big WTF to me. That's so close to DC, why bother? Wright-Pat should have been next in line, and that would have made a much nicer geographic distribution. Also, a Space Shuttle next to an aircraft carrier? That's just bad optics. Also, geez, did NYC really need one more tourist destination?

Reading comments online, it's interesting the different goals people have in mind for assigning Shuttles. Lots of people wanted them to stay with institutions/areas closely connected with the space program: KSC, Houston, Huntsville. I naturally want to spread them out as national treasures, trying to optimize access and visibility. Having a line of them along the Gulf Coast seems pretty silly to me.

I admit, though, to being particularly resentful of Senator Cornyn's little hissy fit that Houston was passed up. Again, I've been there. And I got some awesome tours of JSC -- because I was there for the GYRE flights. As far as I could see, tourist opportunities if you weren't a NASA guest were visiting the rocket garden and a big NASA-themed science center. And until only a few years ago, their Saturn V was left to rot out in the fetid Houston elements. It's been nicely restored finally and is in a climate-controlled building now, but it's absolutely the least they could do. I've seen nicer barns. If you wanted a Shuttle, you should have been making space tourism a priority long ago. For that matter, you should have been making science a priority. This is (one of many reasons) why I wasn't on the committee: I would have said flat out that states which teach a medieval science curriculum don't deserve a Shuttle.

Phew, okay, it felt good to get that out. Not that anyone on my IM list would tell you I've exactly been holding it in today. :)

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Hey, from a museum standpoint, we got *better* than a "real" shuttle. We got the full-fuselage simulator. If we'd gotten Atlantis or Endeavour we couldn't have gone inside and monkeyed with it.

This one? you can.

My nephew is gonna have a T. Rex.

And that little shit from Houston can take his hissy fit and stick it up his oil well. Houston got theirs by getting the damn JSC at all... if it hadn't been for Lyndon they wouldn't have got that! It's nowhere near a viable launch facility, the weather stinks FAR worse than Cape Carnival (summerwise), and putting it there was 10^23% politics. That's right, a bazillion percent. And yer damn right, letting a Saturn V rot in the Cajun swamp humidity is a *sin* if there ever was one. For their sins they can damn well restore what they've got, they don't get anymore.

*/rant*

(BTW, check your geography. Huntsville is about as far from the ocean as you can *get* and still be in a city of any size in Alabama. And it wouldn't have that size today if it weren't for the space program... some Air Force base in the middle of nowheresville. It's a right bitch to get to ... Basically go to Chattanooga and start over. *Chattanooga*, for Seldon's sake, a city which is basically a monument to the fact that the Yankees only had one decent general (and one successful sombeech) and they didn't let them fight until 1864!)

*/rantoknoreallyI'mdonenow*

But we get the SIM... can't wait to fly the thing. I will probably be swearing at it all the way down, but I wanna fly it anyway.

[mlerules.livejournal.com]

states which teach a medieval science curriculum don't deserve a Shuttle.


AMEN!

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I admit, my first reaction was "We get a space shuttle? That's AWESOME!"

On the other hand, yes, we are kind of overloaded for tourist destinations here.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

And the Enterprise can be displayed making a carrier landing!

And there will be two Federation starship namesakes at the same museum!

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Ha, I was wondering about that, as the SR-71 they've got on the Intrepid deck already looks kind of silly. But they're going to build a special display building on the pier for Enterprise.

Also, the idea of a carrier Shuttle landing is just terrifying. That would have to be one hell of a tailhook!