The Sundarban
December 30, 2025
2 min read
Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAmNASA’s Current Chief Faithful Set aside a New Twist on the Texas Field Shuttle Saga
NASA’s unusual boss Jared Isaacman hinted that he would possibly perchance per chance presumably also shatter with Texas lawmakers’ push to transfer iconic region shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Houston
By Claire Cameron edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier
Field shuttle Discovery rolls into its hangar for show conceal on the Smithsonian in 2012.
Dane Penland/Smithsonian’s Nationwide Air and Field Museum
Be half of Our Community of Science Followers!
The wide Texas region shuttle saga has taken a peculiar twist: Jared Isaacman, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead NASA, indicated that the region shuttle Discovery would possibly perchance per chance presumably also simply no longer transfer from its retirement dwelling in a Smithsonian museum to Houston in spite of the total lot despite a Texas lawmaker push over the last year to form it happen.
The effort to shift Discovery from its hangar in Chantilly, Va., an annex of the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Air and Field Museum, became previously described as a “heist” by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois in July—that same month, the transfer became enshrined into regulation by the Trump administration’s One Tall Beautiful Invoice Act, which provided $85 million to transfer the shuttle to the Field Heart Houston museum interior 18 months. Yet in a most contemporary interview with CNBC, Isaacman acknowledged that whether the spacecraft could also be moved remained to be considered.
“My job now is to be definite that we are able to undertake this form of transportation within the future of the budget bucks that now we grasp on hand and, for sure, most importantly, ensuring the protection of the automobile,” Isaacman acknowledged. NASA and the Smithsonian grasp estimated that keen Discovery would imprint on the least $120 million.
On supporting science journalism
Whilst you happen to are taking half in this article, defend in mind supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By shopping a subscription you are serving to to form decided the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and solutions shaping our world today.
If it seems no longer to be doable, he added, then NASA would possibly perchance per chance presumably also within the raze transfer a uncommon automobile to Houston. “We’ve purchased spacecraft that are going across the moon with Artemis II, III, IV and V. A technique or but any other, we’re going to be definite that Johnson Field Heart gets their historic spacecraft,” Isaacman acknowledged.
Field scientists and correct experts previously decried Discovery’s transfer in interviews with Scientific American as a “theft” and “a conceitedness undertaking.” Others expressed field that the Texas museum would no longer be able to successfully rental and beget the spacecraft.
Amanda Montañez; Source: NASA Situation of business of Inspector General (recordsdata)
“One of these transfer would be a smash of money—a conceitedness undertaking that is proper to smash a advance-precious American like,” Matthew Hersch, a fellow in correct history at Current York University College of Law and an affiliate of the Harvard University Division of the History of Science, told Scientific American.
“The elimination of Discovery from the Smithsonian Establishment would be a theft, by the federal govt, of a $2-billion artifact from a non-public museum that owns it and has been conserving it successfully for over a decade,” he acknowledged.
Discovery became first launched in 1984, finishing 39 missions to region—extra than any of the four various region shuttles NASA built that went to region—together with a mission to loft the Hubble Field Telescope into orbit in 1990.
It’s Time to Stand Up for Science
Whilst you happen to enjoyed this article, I’d fancy to quiz to your attend. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industrial for 180 years, and lawful now would possibly perchance per chance presumably even be doubtlessly the main 2nd in that two-century history.
I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I became 12 years historical, and it helped form the model I ogle on the arena. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a arrangement of fright for our stout, fine universe. I’m hoping it does that for you, too.
Whilst you happen to subscribe to Scientific American, you encourage form decided that our protection is centered on critical be taught and discovery; that now we grasp the sources to file on the selections that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we attend every budding and working scientists at a time when the worth of science itself too customarily goes unrecognized.
In return, you obtain major news, spell binding podcasts, gleaming infographics, can not-leave out newsletters, must-behold videos, tough video games, and the science world’s finest writing and reporting. You would possibly perchance per chance presumably presumably even gift any individual a subscription.
There has never been a extra crucial time for us to rise up and list why science matters. I’m hoping you’ll attend us in that mission.
