Shuttle placement to be announced Tuesday...

[tulsaboy]

My guess:
No to Johnson- too difficult, NASA will not want to go through disassembly
No to Evergreen- too minimal visibility for long-term NASA goals
No to NYC- NASA wouldn't want to put one on a pier next to salt water
No to Chicago- how do you get it through town?
No to LA- name an in-town air and space museum there that has done well over the long haul


Discovery to the Smithsonian (obviously)
Atlantis to NMUSAF in Dayton
Endeavour to the Museum of Flight in Seattle
Enterprise is the wild card- hometown sympathy says to Tulsa- put one in the middle of the country, otherwise you just have them on the coasts. (I'm sorry, but Dayton counts as the east coast to the vast bulk of the country that lives out here in fly-over country.) The cargo bay doors were built in Tulsa (and none of the Shuttle was built in DC or Dayton- was any of it built in Seattle?) Enterprise has been here once before, in 1979, and Tulsa has a 10,000 foot runway adjacent to the facility that would house the shuttle.

Also think it is possible that Enterprise comes back to Kennedy Space Center from DC as part of the Discovery swap and stays. The down-side to that scenario? The government essentially keeps three of the shuttles- no matter what anyone says, to the public the NMUSAF and the Smithsonian essentially count as extensions of the federal government.

Those are my 2 cents, for what it is worth. One going to Tulsa, even Enterprise, would be a shocker.

kevin

[APG85]

My guess:
No to Johnson- too difficult, NASA will not want to go through disassembly

There is specific verbiage stating that the Shuttles WILL NOT be disassembled for transport to display sites. This puts the Johnson Space Center virtually out of the running for an Orbiter...

[Garth]

IIRC on one of the earlier shuttle disposition threads there was a discussion about how Johnson was definitely an option because a shuttle could be barged there from KSC.

Also cheaper than flying one somewhere on the SCA.

I'm curious about the comments that Enterprise would go to Kennedy while Endeavour would go somewhere else. Why would KSC get the ALT shuttle rather than a space-flown one? Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to keep Endeavour at KSC since it eliminates one SCA flight?

I've seen the pics of the KSC proposal (I think they were posted in one of the earlier threads), and it is seriously, seriously cool. Shuttle will be portrayed "in-flight" with the payload bay doors open and the Canadarm deployed. That's something that you won't get with Enterprise, which doesn't have a completely payload bay (and while her payload bay doors are space-rated, they don't have the internal hardware like the radiators).

[APG85]

That's something that you won't get with Enterprise, which doesn't have a completely payload bay (and while her payload bay doors are space-rated, they don't have the internal hardware like the radiators).

Sadly, Enterprise is gutted. Virtually nothing remains of her interior. Anything of use in her flight-deck, was pulled decades ago for the space-rated orbiters. It would be neat to restore her back to her full ALT config...

[Rauhbatz]

So if the NMUSAF gets a shuttle does that mean they would have to give up one of the F-82s?

[mustangdriver]

Only if the CAF tries to sell one of the Shuttles.

[RandolphB]

The joke is on California, where each machine and propulsion unit was designed, assembled and tested. Edwards is the second landing site, making it integral to the whole system. There is a deep history here in the community that some of the other proposed locations can't hold a candle to. Obviously, Johnson Space Center, KSC, NMUSAF and the NASM deserve the nod. I haven't heard of any proposal being made from California as, I assume, no California institution was either capable or interested in developing a proposal. There are a few aero museums of high quality (San Diego Aerospace comes to mind) but they don't have the stature or infrastructure of those mentioned on this post. The state has been lately looking inward as it is broke, unemployment is at 12%, leadership is fragmented... the list goes on and on. In my opinion, they'll be better taken care of and appreciated elsewhere, sad to say, but I'm glad it will be done.

There was some local talk in Riverside for the March Field Muesum putting in a bid for one, but I haven't heard anything since it came up a couple of years ago....I can't see them being in the running with most of their aircraft outside anyway..