Senator Calls Out Texas For Trying To Steal Shuttle From Smithsonian (arstechnica.com) 113
Senator Dick Durbin questioned a Texas-led effort to move Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston, describing it as an expensive "heist" costing an estimated $305 million, not the $85 million initially budgeted. "This is not a transfer. It's a heist," said Durbin during a budget markup hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee. "A heist by Texas because they lost a competition 12 years ago." In April, Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz introduced legislation to move the Space Shuttle Discovery from Virginia to Houston, which ultimately passed into law on July 4 as part of the "One Big Beautiful Bill." Ars Technica reports: "In the reconciliation bill, Texas entered $85 million to move the space shuttle from the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia, to Texas. Eighty-five million dollars sounds like a lot of money, but it is not nearly what's necessary for this to be accomplished," Durbin said. Citing research by NASA and the Smithsonian, Durbin said that the total was closer to $305 million and that did not include the estimated $178 million needed to build a facility to house and display Discovery once in Houston.
Furthermore, it was unclear if Congress even has the right to remove an artifact, let alone a space shuttle, from the Smithsonian's collection. The Washington, DC, institution, which serves as a trust instrumentality of the US, maintains that it owns Discovery. The paperwork signed by NASA in 2012 transferred "all rights, interest, title, and ownership" for the spacecraft to the Smithsonian. "This will be the first time ever in the history of the Smithsonian someone has taken one of their displays and forcibly taken possession of it. What are we doing here? They don't have the right in Texas to claim this," said Durbin. [...]
To be able to bring up his points at Thursday's hearing, Durbin introduced the "Houston, We Have a Problem" amendment to "prohibit the use of funds to transfer a decommissioned space shuttle from one location to another location." He then withdrew the amendment after having voiced his objections. "I think we're dealing with something called waste. Eighty-five million dollars worth of waste. I know that this is a controversial issue, and I know that there are other agencies, Smithsonian, NASA, and others that are interested in this issue; I'm going to withdraw this amendment, but I'm going to ask my colleagues be honest about it," said Durbin. "I hope that we think about this long and hard."
"I am glad to see this pass as part of the Senate's One Big Beautiful Bill and look forward to welcoming Discovery to Houston and righting this egregious wrong," Cornyn said in a statement. "Houston has long been the cornerstone of our nation's human space exploration program, and it's long overdue for Space City to receive the recognition it deserves by bringing Space Shuttle Discovery home."
Furthermore, it was unclear if Congress even has the right to remove an artifact, let alone a space shuttle, from the Smithsonian's collection. The Washington, DC, institution, which serves as a trust instrumentality of the US, maintains that it owns Discovery. The paperwork signed by NASA in 2012 transferred "all rights, interest, title, and ownership" for the spacecraft to the Smithsonian. "This will be the first time ever in the history of the Smithsonian someone has taken one of their displays and forcibly taken possession of it. What are we doing here? They don't have the right in Texas to claim this," said Durbin. [...]
To be able to bring up his points at Thursday's hearing, Durbin introduced the "Houston, We Have a Problem" amendment to "prohibit the use of funds to transfer a decommissioned space shuttle from one location to another location." He then withdrew the amendment after having voiced his objections. "I think we're dealing with something called waste. Eighty-five million dollars worth of waste. I know that this is a controversial issue, and I know that there are other agencies, Smithsonian, NASA, and others that are interested in this issue; I'm going to withdraw this amendment, but I'm going to ask my colleagues be honest about it," said Durbin. "I hope that we think about this long and hard."
"I am glad to see this pass as part of the Senate's One Big Beautiful Bill and look forward to welcoming Discovery to Houston and righting this egregious wrong," Cornyn said in a statement. "Houston has long been the cornerstone of our nation's human space exploration program, and it's long overdue for Space City to receive the recognition it deserves by bringing Space Shuttle Discovery home."
Get Nic Cage (Score:5, Funny)
Note to Benjamin Franklin Gates: (Score:2)
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That belongs in a MUSEUM!
As, apparently, do most Senators. :-)
This is what goverment waste looks like (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is what goverment waste looks like (Score:5, Insightful)
Do not worry - DOGE will identify this as inefficiency and stop it. At least in a sane world this is what would happen, however ...
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Do not worry - DOGE will identify this as inefficiency and stop it. At least in a sane world this is what would happen, however ...
The definition of inefficiency is whatever you need is not really needed and is therefore inefficiency and whatever I want is needed and therefore not inefficiency. This has always been true regardless of party or ideology. Look at what DOGE has axed and squint to see if there's any logic or reasoning in what was cut and what was not. Part of what DOGE cut was based on pure ideological whims and part was based on cutting something regardless of what was cut.
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The Houston metro area has 7.8 million residents. The DC metro area has 6.4 million residents. How do you figure the latter makes an exhibit "accessible to so many more people"?
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It's not about the residents, it's about potential visitors. DC has far more of those than Houston, because DC is far more attractive to tourists than Houston.
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Fail.
Last year DC got about 27M tourists. Houston got about 54M.
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That is unexpected.
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I know. I mean, what the fuck U.S. in Houston that's so damned popular?
Re: This is what goverment waste looks like (Score:2)
What they lack in quality, they make up in quantity. Houston is the 9th biggest city in the country geographically.
Re: This is what goverment waste looks like (Score:2)
Houston is like 10 times the size of DC geographically. You have to include the tourism to bordering Maryland and Virginia for a fair comparison.
So, no, Houston doesn't get nearly as much tourism as DC.
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You hit on my pet peeve.
When I refer to Washington D.C. and Houston, I am referring to exactly the area enclosed by their official boundaries, not that area PLUS some indefinite "surrounding area".
One thing I really hate is when using a real estate site and I specify my area of interest as "Pittsburgh" and it includes a bunch of houses not actually within the city limits. If I wanted to include other cities, towns, boroughs and whatever, I would have fucking specified those areas!
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Because who the fuck wants to go to Houston. - Sincerely a foreigner who has zero intention of setting Houston on a list of desired tourist destinations.
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The Houston metro area has 7.8 million residents. The DC metro area has 6.4 million residents. How do you figure the latter makes an exhibit "accessible to so many more people"?
Other than the fact the Smithsonian Air and Space museum itself in Washington DC gets more visitors than Space Center Houston? The Air and Space museum has several Smithsonian museums within walking distance alone. And visitors are in Washington DC which has many more tourist attractions because it is a compact city with a robust public transportation system. That is what "accessible" means. If visitors want to visit Space Center Houston there are some bus routes but no buses on weekends. Also there is noth
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The Air & Space museum in downtown DC is nice and all, but the Space Shuttle is much too big to fit in it.
I was responding to a comment that claimed having the Space Shuttle an hour outside of DC makes it accessible to more people than at the proposed new site. Houston has more residents and more visitors. You might want your own facts, but if you want to make your dumb "by your logic" argument, you are picking a fight with the wrong person.
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New York City already has one
https://intrepidmuseum.org/exh... [intrepidmuseum.org]
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I have lived in both metro areas (technically in Bellaire rather than Houston proper). Houston is much better than you claim, although Astroworld is still missed, and DC has been crapping itself over the past quarter century. School trips to DC aren't going to take a bus out to Chantilly when they can go to the Air & Space Museum on the Mall. You're also wrong about which city has more visitors: in 2024, when both cities broke records for the second year in a row, Houston saw 54 million tourists (as a
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I have lived in both metro areas (technically in Bellaire rather than Houston proper).
If you have lived in Houston then you would know everything is 2 hours away by car. That is less accessible than DC which is a compact city with a decent public transportation.
in 2024, when both cities broke records for the second year in a row, Houston saw 54 million tourists (as a destination -- 63 million went through the city's two main airports); DC had 27 million.
And what does that have to do with visitors to Space Center Houston vs Smithsonian Air and Space museum. People can visit either having nothing to do with visiting museums.
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I've been to Houston several times. Every time I get off the plane, I'm hit with stifling humidity and the air reeks of hydrocarbons from all of the nearby refineries. Why anyone would consider Houston a tourist destination is beyond me, so I question your 54 million figure--please provide citations to back this up.
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I looked into the same thing, for the same reason as you. I found a different source and one that makes a lot more sense:
https://www.xola.com/articles/... [xola.com]
Washington: 25m; Houston: 22m
Even that source seems weird though, it has Kansas having more than Washington.
Re: Go away from slashdot ur too dum. (Score:2)
Even that source seems weird though, it has Kansas having more than Washington.
You must mean Kansas City, it's a big destination for conventions because it's in the middle of the country.
I'm sure it makes sense to count that in some ways because it feeds the hospitality industry just the same, but it's not the same as normal tourist traffic that might spend each day in a different place. Like you go to KC for a week and you might have one free day to see a Royals game, go to Virginia and you can hit the Mall, Smithsonian, Busch Gardens, Monuments, landmarks, historic towns in one trip
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Yes, I meant KC. I still find it odd that KC would have more visitors than Washington, even given conventions. I would have thought Washington would have quite a lot of conventions too, as well as large numbers of political and media visitors etc.
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> Kansas City, it's a big destination for conventions
> because it's in the middle of the country.
Really? I used to have to travel there for work occasionally... not conventions or anything, just a remote site. So I'm not sure about its convention facilities. But KC's airport is just bloody awful and most definitely not suitable for the level of traffic of a major convention destination. The only airport I've personally experienced as worse is Newark... and that's mostly the people that make the pl
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People visiting the US want to see the monuments in downtown DC, not a repurposed airplane hangar in Data Center Alley where a wrong turn puts you at risk of getting shot by armed guards at one of the many Intelligence Community facilities in the area. (You know they're serious when the guards have patches on their uniforms showing their blood type.) But even then it takes the figurative swamp to make it appealing to visit a drained literal swamp.
See how easy it is to make a place sound bad through rhetor
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The organization tasked with promoting the city’s hospitality and conventions business recently reported that more than 54 million people visited Houston in 2024.
So in other words is exactly what he said, and the article really does suggest that they are treating business travelers as tourists.
"Meetings and events booked by Houston First and held in 2024 represented approximately 740,000 hotel room nights, surpassing the previous record of 733,000 room nights set in 2019."
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Washington DC on the other hand is beautiful
No Washington is mostly an ugly shit hole on swamp land. The National Mall is beautiful out side of that it really is just barely navigable often decaying urban landscape.
Now there are lots place in Northern Virginia and Maryland that are also beautiful and nearby but they are also not Washington.
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Washington DC on the other hand is beautiful
No Washington is mostly an ugly shit hole on swamp land.
Outside of a handful of Beaux-Arts buildings that are truly lovely (the Library of Congress, for one), DC is mostly a collection of Brutalist monstrosities that regularly make the list of ugliest buildings. When the Great Society programs starting kicking in during the sixties, it set off a wave of ugly, soul-sucking concrete construction that consumed DC.
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Huston. I have no issue with Huston
Who the fuck gave Zod net access?
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The Shuttle in Los Angeles, not all that far from Houston, is accessible to even more people.
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the Udvar-Hazy Center
I remember when the space shuttle Enterprise was there. They swapped it out for Discovery and did a whole ceremony around having the two shuttles touch noses. Somewhere in my collection of photos, I have a couple of shots of Discovery on its way in to Dulles riding piggy-back on that 747. Enterprise now resides at the Intrepid Museum in NYC, Atlantis is at the Kennedy Space Center, and Endeavour is at the California Science Center. Leave them where they are... or possibly move Enterprise... one of the s
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You might need to remember to take your medication. Are you really trying to argue that a project that has Ted Cruz's fingers in it is going to be less wasteful than the Smithsonian?
No. I’m arguing your obvious political bias has about as much value as fucking girl math.
You expect me to believe a DC museum can’t be corrupt? A place defined by our very tax system that shows off money laundering as art? Literally?
Prove me wrong. Dare audit the status quo. THEN we can bitch about costs. Accurately. DC isn’t just a swamp. It is THE Swamp. I don’t mind being wrong. I mind when people assume and don’t ask relevant questions. It’s what allows org
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I am just pointing out that the cost of moving would far exceed any, what dusting or cleaning of a object already placed in a museum.
You say that assumption with confidence. As if you know the existing costs for an organization to warehouse a massive object in one of the most expensive places in the entire country to do it. A place that is likely in need of a deep audit first to prove your assumption.
Not sure why no one assumes to ask the obvious questions. Perhaps this suggested move is more about auditing the costs of the status quo. DC real estate is a hell of a lot more costly to the taxpayer. And has been for decades. All the
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The cost is what? Cheaper for both native and international visitors? Yeah. I agree.
Geographically and financially advantageous is how one would describe Houston accurately.
Good joke. International visitors don't want to go to Houston. The space shuttle would be pretty much the only reason to visit.
I really wanted to visit Boca Chica when I went to the US recently, but I could not for the life of me justify the incredibly long trip there for just that. Washington DC and Cape Canaveral were both no-brainers compared to that. At least there is tons of interesting stuff to see around those locations.
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The cost is what? Cheaper for both native and international visitors? Yeah. I agree.
Geographically and financially advantageous is how one would describe Houston accurately.
Good joke. International visitors don't want to go to Houston. The space shuttle would be pretty much the only reason to visit.
Good specific example. Hell of a way to help justify the requested move.
I really wanted to visit Boca Chica when I went to the US recently, but I could not for the life of me justify the incredibly long trip there for just that. Washington DC and Cape Canaveral were both no-brainers compared to that. At least there is tons of interesting stuff to see around those locations.
You go to DC and Cape for reasons. You go to Boca for reasons. You either justify those reasons and go, or you don’t. You either want to go badly enough to Boca, or you don’t. It really is that much of a no-brainer. Space launches will likely become daily events in the near future. You either want to see a space launch, or you don’t. Not gonna see it in DC.
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You're missing the point. Nobody wants to go to Houston and nobody will go to Houston, even if a space shuttle is there. It's just going to sit there gathering dust.
Re:This is what Ignorance looks like. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Geographically and financially advantageous is how one would describe Houston accurately"
I'm a Texan and you're so full of shit your eyes went brown.
Houston has one of the worst geographical advantages - see the Los Angeles style smog.
Also, once you leave Houston there's nothing for fucking miles. Good luck getting Bobby Joe Atkins from Wichita Falls down there.
You fucking moron. Leave the shuttle in DC where it fucking belongs.
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Houston has one of the worst geographical advantages - see the Los Angeles style smog.
It's also subject to hurricanes and Biblical flooding. Furthermore, the specially modified 747 used to transport Shutltes from place to place is already a museum piece at the same place that Texas wants to place the Shuttle. It would have to be de-mothballed and made operational again just for thiis one job.
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Kennedy, Edwards, White Sands can all lay claim to her. Houston is an administrative office, and relay station.
Leave her where she belongs.
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1). Millions of people per year come from all around the world to visit Washington D.C. about 27M in 2024. They find it plenty affordable.
2). The location of the shuttle isn't in Washington D.C. anyway. A tourist's hotel does not need to be in D.C. to conveniently visit the shuttle. In fact, Dulles International Airport is locations very near by! If I recall correctly, the museum it is in is actually in airport property.
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Re: This is what goverment waste looks like (Score:5, Funny)
A city in Texa.
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That's Baastin, you ignorant ^H^H^H^H LOST CARRIER
These jokes write themselves (Score:5, Funny)
Ted Cruz introduced legislation to move the Space Shuttle Discovery from Virginia to Houston for $305 million
Oh geez, the lengths Ted Cruz will go to leave Texas when the next disaster hits. (Rimshot) Thank you, good night!
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Home? (Score:5, Interesting)
Home? Has Discovery ever been in Texas? It was built in California and operated in Florida.
Re: Home? (Score:2)
Re:Home? (Score:5, Informative)
even worse (Score:1)
There's a Space Shuttle in fucking New York. This was supposed to go to the Air Force museum (the one and only) in Dayton, OH which basically collects examples of pretty much every plane the government has flown once they are done with it. The place is absolutely massive and has space stuff as well as air force jets. The stuff in their collection goes back to pre-World War 1.
Why is it in New York? Because Hillary fucking Clinton pulled strings to get it. How does Hillary Clinton have that kind of power? Cru
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Re:even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't make this about gender, the fact Trump beat anyone shows America has a problem.
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I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Trump has beaten a woman more than twice. He's just careful not to leave bruises.
Re: even worse (Score:2)
That is stupid. If Trump tried to beat a woman she would kick his ass.
Re: even worse (Score:2)
That was insensitive on my part considering the man is a convicted rapist. I should have thought about that. Mia culpa.
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Trump also raped a bunch of women, which I'm sure you love to think about.
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Trump has never beaten a man.
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NYC is the #1 tourist destination city in the country, especially for international visitors, in fact it's the only city in the USA that tends to crack the top 10 globally in international visitors.
Also where it is located at the Intrepid museum is a notable air and space museum, >1M visitors yearly, it's where Fleet Week takes place every year in NYC, the mtro population for NYC is like 25M.
If I have touristy things to show off and a limited run are we really going to make the case they shouldn't go to
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If I have touristy things to show off and a limited run are we really going to make the case they shouldn't go to NYC and LA first, the two largest cities and cultural capitals of the nation?
As someone who did an "around the USA" trip last year (I'm not american) of all the places we stopped/stayed (disney world, vegas, yosimite national park etc) LA was the worst.
It's not quite "escape from LA" movie level, but it was darn closer than I'd have liked it to be.
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Why put one in America's most visited city instead of Dayton? Who's taking vacation in Dayton?
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Not sure if Discovery has ever been on the ground in Texas but I'm pretty sure its flown over the state at some point.
Eighty-Five MILLION? SERIOUSLY? (Score:2)
$85 million to move the space shuttle from the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia, to Texas
Seriously, now, what? How does one extra-large load cost eighty-five million dollars to move from one place to another? Can anyone give me a sensible breakdown of this? Honestly, give me fifty million to do it and I will, and I'll walk away with a forty-eight million dollar profit. THIS is an example of government waste... and yet someone else is saying it'll cost THREE TIMES this! It's insane. Where are they suggesting all that money will go?
For one million dollars, I could build one large lorry to take i
Re:Eighty-Five MILLION? SERIOUSLY? (Score:5, Informative)
And that was after Endeavor had reached LAX. How did it get there? On the specially modified 747 carrier aircraft [wikipedia.org]. Guess what! They were mothballed years ago. $85 million wouldn't even cover the cost to get one of those aircraft running again.
The shuttle is as wide as 8 highway lanes. When set on a flatbed (with a 75-ton capacity!), it's as tall as a 6-storey building, which 4x taller than highway bridges. You say you'll just lift the shuttle over obstacles with a giant lifting machine. Does such a machine even exist? Can it lift 75 tons? Can it lift 75 tons over a 100-ft wide overpass? What would it cost to rent it? Dulles to JSC is roughly 1400 highway miles.
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It is not like these things ever need to fly again. There really isn't a reason why it can't be cut apart and crudely welded back together at the destination site.
Can you do it for 2 million, hell no. Can you get it done for the 83 million in the bill, yes I think damn well can if you take a rational approach.
Heck you maybe don't even need to put it back together. mount the parts on polls arranged like they'd go back together but with space between them, slap some clear acrylic sheets on the sides to kee
Re:Eighty-Five MILLION? SERIOUSLY? (Score:4, Interesting)
There really isn't a reason why it can't be cut apart and crudely welded back together
Yes there is. That would destroy the authenticity of the artifact completely from a preservation perspective; it would no longer be the Discovery intact. That is tantamount to cutting up the Mona Lisa and pasting it back together. And the trust that owns the shuttle should never agree to it. Congress can go f*** themselves.
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It is not the same at all. There are no practical reasons to cut up the Mona Lisa and it is obviously best enjoyed as single piece.
The Shuttle is entirely different. First transporting as smaller components solves a lot practical problems, so there is justification.
Second it isn't one monolith to start with like a single sheet of canvas, its thing already made up of thousands, maybe 100s of thousands of components. So you're integrity argument is nonsense. I am not about breaking it up selling it off bolt
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Sure lets crop the Rembrandt because it won't fit in the new frame.
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Or you could NOT cut up the priceless historic artifact for no real real practical reason. Seriously? Am I stuck in a fking cartoon?
(Because TX really really wants it is not an actual reason)
How much we gonna bet that this is actually happening precisely because of those millions. It's either a payout for services rendered, or somehow designed to destroy somebody who refused the render said services... or maybe it's just another petty slight between our lofty lawmakers.
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Probably not. Except that it would not have called attention to the fact that GP's wild rant of "I could do it for only $X million" was way off the mark. So far off the mark, in fact, that it warranted being call out. Is calling it out with "dumbass" informative? Maybe just a little bit.
I tend not to get down on folks for not knowing something or asking questions. I am one of today's lucky 10,000 [xkcd.com] pretty frequently. But w
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They could make a blimp to carry it. It'd have to be a really big blimp.
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Seriously, now, what? How does one extra-large load cost eighty-five million dollars to move from one place to another?
Because the cost includes everything to move and house the shuttle from one location to another. It is not just the transportation cost of a truck and gas. And it is a sensitive item not a pallet of parts. When a museum lends a painting to another museum, the total cost could be in the millions. Sure you could give Bob $100 to throw it in his truck and drive it to the location. That is not how these things are moved.
Budget reconciliation (Score:2)
What does a space shuttle being moved have to do with budget reconciliation anyway?
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Nothing. The budget reconciliation process allows them to congress to set aside money for things, And corrupt politicians can never pass up the opportunity to propose some money be set aside for pet projects in their district - helps them stand for re-election.. See guys? I got the shuttle to be moved back to our district; you should vote for me so I can get more special stuff for you.
Money Down The Black Hole (Score:4, Insightful)
That $85,000,000 will be spent by the government on lawyers defending the lawsuit that the Smithsonian will file. In the end, the Shuttle will remain at Udvar-Hazy
A Modest Proposal (a la King Solomon) (Score:5, Funny)
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Solomon Swift, is that you?
How do they plan to move it? (Score:2)
I'm really curious how they plan to move this thing. The shuttle-carrying 247 must have been decommissioned by now. Or did they keep it around for stuff like this?
Re:How do they plan to move it? (Score:5, Informative)
Cruz and Cornyn don't have a plan. They have a line item in a budget with no particular thought behind it other than Texas swinging its dick around.
The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft were mothballed [wikipedia.org] after delivering the shuttles to their respective final destinations. One was dismantled, shipped to Johnson Space Center, and reassembled with a shuttle model perched on top. (See? They have a shuttle. What's Ted Cruz complaining about?). Another went to Edwards AFB and donated parts to the SOFIA airborne telescope (another modified 747), then parked in Palmdale, CA as a museum piece.
So the airframes still exist, but they've been sitting for more than a dozen years and are most definitely NOT in flying condition. I estimate it'd take a lot more than the $85 million in the bill just to re-commission one of these.
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Republicans would spend $85 million on that but not $85 million on feeding hungry children or helping homeless veterans.
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There's another problem in that the Smithsonian owns the Discovery now, and their bill "requires the director" of this Private institution to not only work with NASA to plan a move of the shuttle, But also to Transfer title ownership. In other words an eminent domain takings. The US Constitution has this thing called the 5th amendment which requires that just compensation: Fair market value be paid for such a taking.
How much money will the US government be required to pay the Smithsonian as "Fair
Every single person who voted yes on HR1 (Score:2)
How does this fit a reconciliation bill? (Score:2)
Shouldn't this have been stricken from the reconciliation bill as being extraneous according to the Byrd rule?
There's already one in Houston (Score:2)
The Space Shuttle (Score:2)
just close JSC (Score:2)
I'm sure that would save even more money.
What about the National Museum of the USAF? (Score:1)
Who cares where the thing is displayed? (Score:2)
$85 million + $178 million = $263 million.
Who could possible see this as a useful allocation of funds? Is there noting else Texas could do with $85, $178, or $263 million? I can't imagine Texas is so well-off that none of its residence could find a better utilization of these funds.
Maybe do your job? (Score:1)
Sounds like someone should have read the bill ahead of time, huh?
Ridiculous (Score:2)