{"id":44162,"date":"2025-07-01T19:34:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T11:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/texas-politicians-make-headway-in-effort-to-wrench-space-shuttle-from-smithsonian\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T19:34:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T11:34:21","slug":"texas-politicians-make-headway-in-effort-to-wrench-space-shuttle-from-smithsonian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/texas-politicians-make-headway-in-effort-to-wrench-space-shuttle-from-smithsonian\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas politicians make headway in effort to wrench space shuttle from Smithsonian"},"content":{"rendered":"

A political effort to relocate the space shuttle Discovery<\/em> from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston has been merged with the so-called \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill,\u201d a major economic and policy package now nearing a vote in the US Senate.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBring the Space Shuttle Home Act,\u201d first introduced by Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn in April, has now been added to the Senate\u2019s version of the bill championed by President Donald Trump. While the latter legislation primarily focuses on tax cuts and spending increases, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, chaired by Cruz, added the retired orbiter\u2019s relocation as part of an additional $9.995 billion in funding for NASA\u2019s programs, including the return of astronauts to the Moon and sending humans to Mars.<\/p>\n

(Update on July 1 at 12:30 p.m. EDT<\/b>: The Senate passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with the provision to relocate space shuttle Discovery included with a vote of 50 to 50, and Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. The bill now heads to House of Representatives.)<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things in the Big Beautiful Bill we\u2019re talking about, there\u2019s about a $10 billion appropriation for NASA,\u201d said Cornyn at a June 20 press conference at Space Center Houston. \u201cWe\u2019re optimistic that bill that started out as a beautiful bill in the House will become even more beautiful in the Senate this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of that appropriations, $85 million is directed to carry out Cornyn\u2019s Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act, which calls for Discovery to be removed from its home of the past 13 years, the National Air and Space Museum\u2019s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, and put it on display at Space Center Houston, the official visitor complex for NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Texas.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

The Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill provides \u201cno less than $5 million\u201d for the \u201ctransportation of the space vehicle\u201d and the remainder to go towards the construction of a facility to house it.<\/p>\n

Is $85 million even enough?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The original text of the Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act called for the NASA administrator and the Smithsonian to jointly develop a plan for moving Discovery prior to appropriations being made by Congress. It is unclear whether the total amount allocated by the Senate would be enough; the National Air and Space Museum provided Congress with an estimate of $200 million to $300 million for the move, according to the Houston Business Journal.<\/p>\n

Others have pegged the cost between $5 million to upward of $1 billion. In 2012, when NASA\u2019s three retired orbiters and the prototype Enterprise were being moved to their current museum homes, each institution was responsible for paying $28.8 million for the preparation and transportation of the orbiter (a reduction from the $42 million that was first estimated). However, the aircraft used to move the shuttle have since been retired.<\/p>\n

Congress waived the fee for the Smithsonian after the National Air and Space Museum said that its budget would not cover Discovery<\/em>\u2018s delivery. \u201cShould the [NASA] Administrator determine that the Smithsonian Institution is an appropriate venue for an orbiter, such orbiter shall be made available to the Smithsonian at no or nominal cost,\u201d read the provision.<\/p>\n

Cornyn said that the benefits of displaying Discovery<\/em> in Houston\u2014including economic and educational considerations for the local area\u2014outweighed the prior actions that Congress has taken to support having NASA\u2019s most-flown spacecraft amongst the national collection.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s retired space shuttle Discovery<\/em> as seen on display in the McDonnell Space Hangar at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum\u2019s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n CollectSpace<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no question the Smithsonian is a national treasure, but it doesn\u2019t hold all the treasures that America has to show,\u201d said Cornyn, replying to a question from collectSPACE at the Space Center Houston briefing. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

In 2011, the NASA Office of the Inspector General investigated the process that NASA went through and found \u201cno evidence that the White House, politics, or any other outside force improperly influenced the selection decision.\u201d The OIG did find one \u201csignificant error,\u201d but it would have benefited the National Museum of the US Air Force in Ohio, rather than Space Center Houston.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say Discovery<\/em><\/h2>\n

The language in the Senate bill avoids any mention of the Smithsonian, Space Center Houston, Discovery<\/em>, or even the space shuttle. It only stipulates that a \u201cspace vehicle\u201d (defined as a vessel that carried people into space) be transferred within 18 months of enactment to a NASA center \u201cinvolved in the administration of the Commercial Crew program\u201d and put on public display \u201cwithin the Metropolitan Statistical Area\u201d of that center.<\/p>\n

The bill directs that the NASA administrator (or acting administrator) identify the vehicle within 30 days of the bill becoming law. Of the four retired orbiters, Enterprise<\/em> in New York and Endeavour<\/em> in California are owned by their display homes; Discovery<\/em> and Atlantis<\/em>, the latter on display in Florida, remain federal property.<\/p>\n

The vagueness of the wording is an effort to avoid the provision being flagged by the Senate parliamentarian for violating the \u201cByrd rule,\u201d which keeps \u201cextraneous matter\u201d out of Senate reconciliation bills, including earmarks directed at a specific recipient, according to Roll Call. The shuttle move, as originally phrased, was identified as being at risk.<\/p>\n

Should the text remain and make it to a vote and the Senate passes the bill, then it still must return to the House of Representatives to be reconciled with its version passed in May. Rep. Randy Weber, serving Texas\u2019 14th District, said that he was prepared to enter Discovery\u2019s move into the House bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working on it,\u201d said Weber at Space Center Houston, standing with Cornyn. \u201cThey are working on the Big Beautiful Bill; we\u2019ll get this done and, hopefully, we\u2019ll get this headed our way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A political effort to relocate the space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston has been merged with the so-called \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill,\u201d a major economic and policy package now nearing a vote in the US Senate. The \u201cBring the Space Shuttle Home Act,\u201d first introduced by Texas Senators Ted Cruz and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[386,3789,4472,9545,9566,632,3167,9547,9506,9548,5938,1898,2857],"class_list":["post-44162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-congress","tag-discovery","tag-national-air-and-space-museum","tag-one-big-beautiful-bill","tag-sen-john-cornyn","tag-senate","tag-smithsonian","tag-space-center-houston","tag-space-shuttle-2","tag-steven-f-udvar-hazy-center","tag-ted-cruz","tag-texas","tag-virginia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}