Want a Surplus Space Shuttle? You can have it for $42 Mil

[Jerry O'Neill]

nobody has a hoist to get it off the 747except CA and FL....

Not really a concern. They managed to get the Orbiter Enterprise off the 747 at Dulles without a rig. They'll just use two big cranes.
Jerry

[sheppjr]

Les, you guys know they can't let the engines go with it.. Some misguided unwashed soul might try to fly it !

Said soul would also need an external tank to supply LO2 and LH2 for the engines.

[mustangdriver]

If the NASM wants 42 million per shuttle and then get them all, then they better have some room, because they will be stuck with them. The NMUSAF may get the NASM a B-24, it won't of course be Strawberry.

[jamesintucson]

If the NASM wants 42 million per shuttle and then get them all, then they better have some room, because they will be stuck with them. The NMUSAF may get the NASM a B-24, it won't of course be Strawberry.

Most of the money is going to go to the contractor that makes the Shuttles safe for display. Primarily that is the clean up of an unholy number of haz mat sources. I've heard the Shuttles called flying Super Fund sites. Things like hydrozine and amonia have to come out regardless of where they go so it is probably a fixed cost that no one will be able to get out of. Only $6 million of the cost is what NASA is getting for transport.

The RFI is very clear that NASA is going to decide where they end up. Nowhere in it is there mention of NASM except as a receipient of Discovery. There was a news story on CNN's web page that quoted a Smithsonian rep as saying that they had not decided if they were going to accept the Shuttle or not and implied that the money was the issue. The Curators may want it but us Curators want a lot of things that the bean counters won't let us have.

James

[Garth]

If the NASM wants 42 million per shuttle and then get them all, then they better have some room, because they will be stuck with them. The NMUSAF may get the NASM a B-24, it won't of course be Strawberry.

I think the $42 million is more of a starting point for negotiations. For example, it cites a $6 million cost to ferry the shuttle to the airport nearest the receiving museum. Yet as recently as this last mission the cost to ferry the shuttle from Edwards back to Florida was pegged at $1.8 million (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00215.html) ... meaning that it either costs $4.2 million to rent two cranes to lift the Shuttle off the 747, or NASA is asking for a 3x premium to fly the shuttle somewhere.

The $28 million to "safe" the shuttles doesn't really make sense either, because most of the work cited is what always happens after a mission ends anyways. The article would have us assume that NASA is just going to roll the shuttles into a hangar after their last flights and let them sit for at least a year with loaded rocket propellant tanks, fuel cells, etc.

And the shuttles will need to go somewhere. The orbiter processing facility and related buildings will be converted over to Constellation. I don't see NASA wanting to park them outside at Kennedy, or fly them back to Edwards (or AMARG, for that matter ) to park them outside.

All this is just very public posturing, since many of the major museums are clamoring for a shuttle (the competition was describe to me as something that would quickly go "thermonuclear" one it was known the shuttles were available for transfer). As to where the negotiations go ... as much as us enthusiasts tend to think that museums these days will make decisions based on what we feel or think is the "right" thing to do, the real name of the game is having draws that help up attendance and therefore revenue. I was watching the movie "Toy Story" with my kids the other day, and recall that it stated a well-known truth ... that when the Astronauts went up, space-toys became all the rage. I go to NASM Dulles on a regular basis (on average once a month), and since I'm usually the Dad in my kids' classes that can lead tours there have chaperoned probably six or seven school field trips (at least one a year, with a couple years where I chaperoned two) since it opened five years ago. There are definite patterns to people's behaviors. The WWII generation make a beeline to Enola Gay, and there are people (enthusiasts, imho) who take a methodical approach and either turn right (modern military aviation) or left (WWII and then over to commercial aviation) but as a general rule the average visitor comes off the ramp or stairs and heads past the SR-71 (which happens to be right there when one comes off) to the Space Hangar and Enterprise.

To people like us there may only be one SB, or one Swoose, or Memphis Belle, or Flak Bait, etc ... but to most visitors to high-volume museums like NMUSAF or NASM they're just old historic airplanes ... or maybe airplanes of an recognizable type (Enola Gay is probably the exception to this rule). On their own they aren't specific draws to a lot of people.

There are four shuttles and a significant portion of the general public has the ability to identify the three flown ones individually by name. They are going to be HUGE draws to the museums that get them. And huge draws equate to much higher revenues (first at the door, then at add-on attractions like IMAX, the simulators and the gift shop) in an environment where maintaining (and expanding) historic aircraft collections is a very costly proposition.

My admitted smart-a** remark earlier aside, I wouldn't be surprised at all that, if push came to shove, NMUSAF would trade SB for a shuttle. Who goes to NMUSAF to see SB, specifically, as opposed to seeing an aircraft collection that happens to include a B-24? Who would go because NMUSAF has a shuttle. It's practically rhetorical, like asking why Columbia (the Apollo 11 CM capsule) is THE centerpiece of the central gallery at NASM Mall, not Flak Bait. A responsible museum director would have to look at what putting a shuttle on display would mean to their balance sheet ... and on that basis alone the decision would be a no-brainer.

[APG85]

I still have my doubts on this. THe NASM does NOT have 42 million dollars to drop on this. THe NMUSAF does not either. If that is the case get ready to see a few shuttles scrapped.

I suspect (could be wrong) these are shock numbers intended to give all museums the opportunity to "bid" on the Shuttles before they actually go to their "intended homes." The NASM always has the right of first refusal and space vehicles are Gov't owned. This will be a Gov't transfer between agencies. I'm not saying free, but the cost will be a "write off in a paperwork shuffle especially if the NASM takes possession of all three Shuttle on paper (like the Apollo Command Modules) and then sends them out to other museums.

The Currrent likely Scenario:
Atlantis: NASM
Discovery: NMUSAF
Endeavour: Kennedy Space Center
Enterprise: Transfer to Johnson Space Center

[RickH]

When Challenger blew up Congress ordered another shuttle, Discovery. I asked hoot Gibson why Enterprise wasn't brought up to speed and his answer was surprising. "Enterprise isn't flightworthy, it is essentially a mockup", according to Hoot some of Enterprises structure is wood ! So we really don't have four shuttles, we have 3 and a flyable "shape". It was a surprise to me as I had never heard that before.

[Garth]

When Challenger blew up Congress ordered another shuttle, Discovery. I asked hoot Gibson why Enterprise wasn't brought up to speed and his answer was surprising. "Enterprise isn't flightworthy, it is essentially a mockup", according to Hoot some of Enterprises structure is wood ! So we really don't have four shuttles, we have 3 and a flyable "shape". It was a surprise to me as I had never heard that before.

Actually, that's mostly wrong. Enterprise is, structurally, a twin of Columbia (Challenger was a one-off built using a Static Test Article frame, Discovery and Atlantis are twins built to a lighter weight-specification and Endeavour an improved Discovery/Atlantis), just without all the space-related plumbing and crew module. edit: Enterprise lacks TPS as well, but otherwise is space-rated. One of NASMs ongoing fears has been that one of the flying shuttles will suffer damage to their cargo-bay doors and NASA will come back, as they have the right to do, and repo Enterprises ...

Valerie Neal, who is the Smithsonian's post-Apollo spacecraft curator at NASM had an in-depth article on the situation with Enterprise with "Bumped from the shuttle fleet: Why didn't Enterprise fly in space?", published in 'History and Technology', Volume 18, Issue 3 2002 , pages 181 - 202. I don't have my copy handy (I just recalled the author and enough of the title to find references in google).

After the ALTs Enteprise was supposed to be reconditioned for spaceflight. IIRC Neal pegs the decision to build Challenger using STA-99 (Challenger's OV number was OV-099, which is out of sequence with the other shuttles) was a factor of cost, time-to-flight and the decision to limit the shuttle fleet to 4 orbiters instead of 5. NASA planned ahead with the shuttles and procured a set of "structural spares" of major components (like the complex structure that mounts the SSMEs to the shuttle fuselage) in case one of the shuttles suffered major damage. When Challenger was lost NASA decided to build Endeavor around these spares, rather than recondition Enterprise.

On a side note, I've heard a story that the real, and unacknowledged, reason why Enterprise wasn't reconditioned was due to structural damage inflicted when Haise bounced her down the runway at Edwards during ALT-5. The ALTs were supposed to continue, but after 5 NASA decided it "had enough data" and stopped the remaining drops.

[cozmo]

When Challenger blew up Congress ordered another shuttle, Discovery...

Endeavour, sorry. Its just one of those things that jump at me.

[RickH]

Yeah, sorry, I got the names confused, hey, it's early...

But the rest of what I wrote was what I got directly from Hoot Gibson whan I asked him the question. Maybe he was repeating NASA party line ?

[CH2Tdriver]

Yeah, sorry, I got the names confused, hey, it's early...

But the rest of what I wrote was what I got directly from Hoot Gibson whan I asked him the question. Maybe he was repeating NASA party line ?

When Hoot was referring to 'wood' he probably was talking about Enterprises cockpit. Except for the front panel, the rest (what would contain all the controls for the payload bay operation etc...) was a mockup.

Pete

[APG85]

The mid-deck was (and still is) an empty shell...

[mustangdriver]

THe enterprise flew did it not? Not in space but I thought it did glide tests ans such. A very important part of the shuttle history. I also thought that it was looked at to bring the Enterprise up to flight status, but it was going to be too expensive.

[spookythecat]

Having a former astronaut running the Museum of Flight has me curious. $42 million is alot of freakin' money though.

Paul Allen seems to be into this kinda stuff. Paul????

[APG85]

THe enterprise flew did it not? Not in space but I thought it did glide tests ans such. A very important part of the shuttle history. I also thought that it was looked at to bring the Enterprise up to flight status, but it was going to be too expensive.

It was to heavy and was going to take to much work to take it apart and rebuild it to make it space flight capable. It also still had use as an engineering test bed.

...and yes, Fred Haise bounced it on it's final approach and landing test (response to another post) but no structural damage was done...