Smithsonian would lose space shuttle to Texas under GOP bill
The GOP spending and tax bill would move the Space Shuttle Discovery from its current home at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum annex, the Udvar-Hazy Center, in Virginia to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Moving Discovery was the goal of legislation brought earlier this year by Texas Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, who said in April that Houston's long ties to the space program should have been recognized with a space shuttle when four were retired by NASA in 2010.
Space Center Houston, where the shuttle is expected to be put on display, is the official visitors center of Johnson Space Center in Houston. It is already home to a replica of the Space Shuttle Independence, formerly known as Explorer.
The bill being considered by the House this week sets aside $85 million to relocate and build a facility to house and display a space vehicle that meets three criteria: it has flown into space, has carried astronauts; and is selected by an organization picked by NASA's administrator.
There are only four space vehicles that meet the first two criteria: Enterprise, which belongs to the Intrepid Museum in New York; Endeavor, which belongs to the California Science Center in Los Angeles; Atlantis, which is on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex, and Discovery at the Smithsonian.
Only Atlantis and Discovery are still owned by the U.S. government. NASA owns Atlantis. Discovery was gifted to the Smithsonian Institution, a quasi-government agency, in 2012.
It is highly unusual for items of national importance to be removed from the Smithsonian. Discovery was the third operational orbiter to fly in space. It entered service in 1984 and retired from spaceflight as the oldest and most utilized orbiter in 2011. It launched the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Smithsonian's estimate to Congress was that it would cost between $300 million and $400 million of taxpayer dollars to move Discovery across the country.
Last week, at an event at Space Center Houston, Cornyn said Houston's role in the space program is deserving of the Discovery and that the space shuttle should "come back home," although it wasn't manufactured in Houston, nor did it launch from Houston. The Johnson Space Center served as Mission Control for the space shuttle program.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Gizmodo
an hour ago
- Gizmodo
Ted Cruz's Bid to Reclaim Space Shuttle Discovery Could Cost $400 Million
At a time when money is too tight for NASA's science exploration endeavors, Texas senators are willing to pour millions into a risky process to relocate the Space Shuttle to Houston under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. President Donald Trump's tax and spending bill, which passed the Senate on Tuesday, includes a provision to move the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Virginia to Space Center Houston. The Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act was added to the Senate's version of the bill as part of an additional $10 billion in funding for NASA. The bill sets aside $85 million to relocate the Shuttle and build a facility in Houston to house it, but the Smithsonian argues it would cost somewhere between $300 and $400 million to move the massive spacecraft across the country, according to the Houston Business Journal. The Smithsonian also raised concern that the Shuttle could be damaged during the relocation process given the 'extremely complex and difficult' move. The Discovery Relocation Act was first introduced by Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn in April, calling on NASA and the Smithsonian to develop a plan to relocate Discovery. It provided no less than $5 million to move the Shuttle to its new home, and the remaining $80 million will go toward building its new display facility at Space Center Houston. Space Center Houston is the official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center, home to mission control for the Space Shuttle program. All launches took place at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but more than 100 Shuttle missions were managed from Houston. Discovery made its inaugural flight on August 30, 1984, and completed a total of 39 missions over the span of 27 years. Discovery was the first Shuttle to return to flight after both the Challenger and Columbia disasters in 1988 and 2005, respectively, leading recovery missions that breathed new life into the iconic program. Discovery also launched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 and helped in the assembly of the International Space Station. For the past 13 years, Discovery has been on display at the Smithsonian. Three other Shuttles are also on display in different parts of the country; Enterprise is at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York; Atlantis is at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and Endeavor is currently being set up for display at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center in Los Angeles. Considering its long history with spaceflight, Houston feels left out and wants a Shuttle of its own. After the Shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA selected the museums to display the retired spacecraft. NASA called on museums and science centers across the country to apply to host one of the Shuttles, and its selection criteria were based on national significance, ability to properly house the spacecraft, resources, and geographic distribution. Not everyone was happy, and the agency's process was highly scrutinized. At the time, 16 members of the Texas delegation wrote a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, referring to the selection process as the 'Houston Shuttle Snub.' However, NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed the agency's selection process and found no wrongdoing. 'We found no evidence that the White House, politics, or any other outside force improperly influenced the selection decision,' James Mitzelfeld, OIG investigative counsel, said in a video statement at the time. The Texans are still not happy, it seems. 'There's no question the Smithsonian is a national treasure, but it doesn't hold all the treasures that America has to show,' Cornyn said during a press conference on June 20, collectSPACE reported. 'It would be nice if there were more to go around, but since there are only four, we are going to get the one that we should have gotten back in 2010.'
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Astronaut photographs elusive luminous event from far above Earth
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station has shared a striking photo of what is known as a Transient Luminous Event seen above a thunderstorm over Mexico and the Desert Southwest earlier in the week. NASA astronaut Nichole 'Vapor' Ayers posted the image on social media and said, 'Just. Wow. As we went over Mexico and the US this morning, I caught this sprite.' Advertisement Sprites are a type of TLE, which create brilliant flashes of light high above powerful thunderstorms and are difficult to observe from the ground. There is some debate on whether what she captured is surely a sprite or what is known as a gigantic jet – both are part of the TLE phenomena. According to NOAA, sprites are often triggered by positive cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, which produce an electric field that extends miles above a thunderstorm into the upper atmosphere. The phenomenon appears mostly red in color, lasts only a fraction of a second and occurs so high up in the atmosphere that it is rarely visible to the human eye – unless, of course, you are orbiting some 250 miles above Earth's surface. Advertisement 4 NASA astronaut Nichole 'Vapor' Ayers captured a Sprite above Earth from the International Space Station. via REUTERS 4 Nichole Ayers aboard the International Space Station in 2025. ISS/NASA / SWNS 'Sprites are TLEs, or Transient Luminous Events, that happen above the clouds and are triggered by intense electrical activity in the thunderstorms below. We have a great view above the clouds, so scientists can use these types of pictures to better understand the formation, characteristics, and relationship of TLEs to thunderstorms,' Ayers explained on social media. Gigantic jets begin inside the anvil and reach through the cloud up to the ionosphere, which represents what Ayers might have witnessed. Advertisement Why some lightning bolts trigger sprites while others do not is still poorly understood by the scientific community. Other related phenomena include elves, blue jets and ghosts, all of which are known TLEs, and occur well above Earth's surface in the stratosphere, mesosphere and even the thermosphere. 4 The phenomenon appears mostly red in color, lasts only a fraction of a second and occurs so high up in the atmosphere that it is rarely visible to the human eye – unless, of course, you are orbiting some 250 miles above Earth's surface. via REUTERS 4 The International Space Station orbiting over Earth in November 2018. NASA / SWNS Advertisement Ayers is currently stationed aboard the ISS as part of NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 mission, which launched in March and is expected to remain in outer space through at least August. During the astronauts' time aboard the space observatory, the crew will conduct hundreds of scientific experiments, including testing the flammability of material and studies examining the physiological and psychological effects of space on the human body.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Jewels of discovery by NASA's Webb Space Telescope in its first 3 years
Three years ago, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope began its legendary mission unfolding the secrets of our universe and producing some of the most detailed images of celestial objects to date. According to Nasa, since July 2022, Webb has collected nearly 550 terabytes of data in just three years between its imaging and spectroscopy capabilities. To mark the three-year anniversary of Webb's mission, NASA highlighted some of the discoveries and revelations made by the most powerful space telescope operating today. Let's take a look at a few of Webb's achievements that wow'd astronomers and the public alike. Webb was created to observe the "cosmic dawn," when the first stars and galaxies were forming. During this period, scientists theorized they would see a few faint galaxies, but Webb saw bright galaxies within 300 million years of the Big Bang. "Hundreds of millions of years might not seem quick for a growth spurt, but keep in mind that the universe formed in the big bang roughly 13.8 billion years ago," NASA said. "If you were to cram all of cosmic time into one year, the most distant of these galaxies would have matured within the first couple of weeks, rapidly forming multiple generations of stars and enriching the universe with the elements we see today." JWST was used to cross-check the physics problem known as "Hubble Tension," which refers to Hubble Space Telescope observations over 30 years that show the universe is expanding faster than expected. The mystery phenomenon of why the universe is expanding is known to cosmologists as "dark energy." According to the team behind the 2024 study, observations from both Hubble and JWST aligned closely. With Webb's findings, cosmologists say it might be time to rethink the standard cosmological model and begin looking for something yet to be discovered that could improve our understanding of the universe. Scientists used the James Webb Space Telescope to take their first-ever direct look at how the water emissions from the Moon Enceladus supply the Saturnian system and its famed rings. Webb revealed the plume from Enceladus spans more than 6,000 miles, about 20 times wider than the Moon, spreading out into donut-shaped rings encircling Saturn. Ocean On Saturn's Moon Enceladus Has All The Ingredients For Life, Study Finds When a star like our Sun dies, the death creates ripple effects large enough to consume any nearby planets. In a final act, the outer layer of the star is shed, leaving behind a super-hot core known as a white dwarf. Scientists used Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument to find potential surviving planets orbiting white dwarfs. If confirmed, it would mean under the right conditions, a planet could survive the death of its star. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope delivered incredibly detailed images of spiral galaxies in a combination of near- and mid-infrared light. According to NASA, these images reveal so much more than previous Hubble Space Telescope images, down to the filaments of dust wrapping around the spiral arms. Click through the gallery below to see Webb's images of spiral galaxy NGC 628 compared to Hubble's. "Webb's new images are extraordinary," said Janice Lee, a project scientist for strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in January 2024. "They're mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle." More recently, Webb's powerful instruments were used to size up a newly discovered asteroid potentially threatening Earth. Asteroid 2024 YR4 was discovered on Dec. 27, 2024, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile. The asteroid warranted international attention, briefly jumping to the highest asteroid threat on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale. Chances Asteroid 2024 Yr4 Will Hit Moon Increase But Earth Remains In The Clear JWST was able to help scientists determine asteroid 2024 YR4 is about the size of a 15-story building, calculate its orbital path and declare Earth safe from a collision course with the asteroid. However, the Moon is still not out of the woods yet. NASA estimates the Webb telescope has about 20 more years of observation time left, allowing for decades of discoveries to article source: Jewels of discovery by NASA's Webb Space Telescope in its first 3 years
