As the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch draws near, the focus is not so much on the past but the future: Where will the shuttles wind up once the programme winds down?
Twenty-one museums and science and visitor centres around the US are vying for one of Nasa’s three retiring spaceships.
They will find out on Tuesday on the 30th anniversary of Columbia’s maiden voyage.
Snagging Discovery, Atlantis or Endeavour for display does not come cheap. Nasa puts the tab at $28.8 million. Consider that a bargain. Early last year, Nasa dropped the price from $42 million.
One space shuttle is already spoken for – the Smithsonian Institution is getting Discovery, Nasa’s oldest and most travelled shuttle that ended its flying career last month.
It will go to the National Air and Space Museum’s hangar in Virginia and take the place of Enterprise, the shuttle prototype used for tests in the late 1970s.
That frees up Enterprise for another museum, so there will be three other winners – a 1-in-7 chance.
Nasa administrator Charles Bolden Jr, a former shuttle commander, is making the final decision, with input from a committee.
He will announce the winners while marking the 30-year anniversary at Kennedy Space Centre, Nasa’s launch and landing site, and the front-runner in the nab-a-shuttle race.
The festivities could end up being delayed if the federal government shuts down.
As the big day looms, shuttle suitors are getting anxious and pulling out all the stops.
Even the prime contender, the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex, is jittery despite its “knock your socks off” endorsement from Nasa’s shuttle launch director.
The commercially run tourist site wants to suspend the shuttle over visitors, with the payload bay doors wide open as if in orbit and the robot arm outstretched.
“We’re extraordinarily nervous. We don’t sleep much these days,” Bill Moore, chief operating officer for the visitor complex, said this week.
“Three of anything in the world, it’s going to get awfully competitive. And three of the shuttles, I think, even raises the bar.”
Nasa originally had four space shuttles. Challenger was destroyed during lift-off in 1986, and Endeavour was built as a replacement. Then Columbia was lost in 2003.
Columbia was the first to fly on April 12, 1981, 20 years to the day that Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the world’s first spaceman. Tuesday will mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.
Endeavour is set to soar late this month, and Atlantis will close out the shuttle programme with a summer lift-off.