14 DAY TRIAL // The American space agency announced some time ago that it planned to retire the aging space-shuttle fleet, currently made up of Endeavor, Discovery and Atlantis, by September 2010. Although it's not entirely sure at this point whether this proposal will be followed through or not, officials at NASA act according to plan, and make preparations for what will happen to the orbiters after they are pulled out of active duty. Yesterday, for instance, they announced that the price applied to museums that wanted to buy one of the three shuttles had been reduced considerably, Space reports.
According to the new figures, museums and other organizations could obtain a space shuttle for as little as 28.8 million US dollars, a significant decrease from the initial $42 million that the agency requested. However, with this drop in price also came a new condition in the payment plan, NASA officials added. The due date for the reduced payment has been brought forth by six months, which basically means that the space agency is asking for less money, but faster. Also, only Endeavor and Discovery remained up for grabs at that point, the authorities announced.
The shuttle Discovery has been “promised” to the National Air and Space Museum, in Washington DC. As the oldest surviving orbiter, its presence would be better taken advantage of at that location, analysts say. However, this will not exempt the Smithsonian from having to pay the $29 million dollars to the US space agency. The drop in prices was brought forth by the fact that NASA decided not to make museums pay for the “safeing” of the orbiters, which means that it will take care of removing all possible toxic compounds from the spacecraft before shipping them away. However, the organizations that purchase any shuttle will have to pay for the transport fees.
The fleet is currently based at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA has two Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) Boeing 747 ready to deliver the shuttles to any location in the United States. The shipping costs would be supported by the purchaser, the agency announced in the formal Request for Information (RFI) document it sent to museums. A trip from the Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), in California, to the KSC costs about $2 million. Museums have until February 19, 2010 to submit their offers to the agency, so as to become eligible for receiving a spacecraft.
The final resting places for Atlantis and Endeavor would be announced as early as this July, NASA said. This means that whichever museum gets them will have around a year at its disposal to construct all the necessary housing structures, and to secure the funding needed for the acquisition.