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NASA’s retired space shuttle Discovery on point to within the McDonnell Space Hangar at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
(Image credit: collectSPACE.com)
On July 4, 2006, NASA’s space shuttle Discovery launched on a “return to flight” mission that paved the map for it and its sister ships to wing for one other 5 years. Now, a sprawling funds enacted on Independence Day will reputedly lead to Discovery lifting off over again — although this time now not into space, but rather from its enviornment within the national sequence.
President Donald Trump signed into law the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” today (July 4), a day after the laws was narrowly handed out of Congress with handiest Republican pork up. Deep right in the course of the 900-web page bill is a provision added by Texas’ senators to transfer a “space vehicle” to a NASA center “involved in the administration of the Commercial Crew Program” and “placed on public exhibition at an entity within the Metropolitan Statistical Area where such center is located.”
The vague language, written in this type of approach to skirt Senate restrictions on reconciliation funds, was aimed toward achieving the “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act” launched by Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn in April.
Senator John Cornyn (at center) speaks about the “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act,” an effort to move the space shuttle Discovery, at a press convention at Space Center Houston on June 20, 2025. Becoming a member of Cornyn at the match were historical astronaut Tim Kopra (at a ways), Win. Randy Weber (TX-14), Space Center Houston CEO William Harris and Brian Freedman, president of the Bay Space Houston Financial Partnership. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com)
“It is long overdue for Space Metropolis to rating the repute it deserves by bringing the space shuttle Discovery home,” said Cornyn in a press originate launched after the Senate handed its version of the bill in a vote of 50 to 50, with Vice President J.D. Vance breaking the tie.
“Houston has long stood at the heart of America’s human spaceflight program, and this legislation rightly honors that legacy,” said Cruz, who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation. “It ensures that any future transfer of a flown, crewed space vehicle will prioritize locations that have played a direct and vital role in our nation’s manned space program, making Houston, Texas, a leading candidate.”
“Bringing such a historic space vehicle to the region would underscore the city’s indispensable contributions to our space missions, highlight the strength of America’s commercial space partnerships, and inspire future generations of engineers, scientists, and pioneers who will carry our legacy of American leadership in space,” he said.
The bill allocates $85 million to move Discovery from the its point to dwelling of the past 13 years, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, to Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. “No less than $5 million” is earmarked for the transportation of the winged orbiter, with the remainder going towards the “construction of a facility to house the space vehicle.”
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Per the bill, the move of space shuttle Discovery ought to be accomplished by Jan. 4, 2027. It does now not stipulate how the orbiter ought to be moved. It is now not determined if the $85 million will possible be ample to quilt the transfer and point to, on condition that the first time the retired shuttles were introduced to their museum homes in 2012, the price for genuine the preparation and transport of every vehicle was $28.8 million, which didn’t consist of floor transportation to the museum.
Discovery is america’ most flown spacecraft in history, with 39 missions between 1984 and 2011. In the job of retiring the shuttle shortly, Discovery was identified by NASA because the “vehicle of record,” such that it was kept more intact than Atlantis or Endeavour for the explanation of serving as engineering example at the Smithsonian.
NASA’s first Shuttle Provider Plane NASA 905 and the mock orbiter Independence at Space Center Houston. (Image credit: Space Center Houston)
Space Center Houston has now not launched any minute print as of yet about how or the put this can point to Discovery, as antagonistic to to thunder it suits into its strategic plans transferring forward. The guts already shows a mock, walkthrough space shuttle, “Independence,” mounted atop NASA”s fashioned modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Provider Plane, “NASA 905.”
A 2011 investigation by the NASA Office of the Inspector Total chanced on “no evidence that the White House, politics or any other outside force improperly influenced the selection decision” of the put the space shuttles were at the muse awarded by the space company. It is unclear if there are from now on actions the Smithsonian or other entities might perchance well possible also take to terminate Discovery’s transfer.
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Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, a each day data newsletter and neighborhood devoted to space history with a specific focal point on how and the put space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-creator of “Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018.In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History. In 2023, the National Space Club Florida Committee recognized Pearlman with the Kolcum News and Communications Award for excellence in telling the space story along the Space Coast and throughout the world.
