http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7477323.html
Houston may be the home of astronauts, mission control and the space shuttle program itself, but the city likely faces an increasingly uphill battle to obtain an orbiter for public display once NASA retires the shuttle fleet. NASA plans to announce retirement homes for its three orbiters — Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour — on April 12, the 30th anniversary of the shuttle program's first launch. Although Houston and Florida's launch complex at Kennedy Space Center can claim the strongest ties to the space shuttle program, and both have submitted bids to put an orbiter on public display, Texas politicians and businessmen are beginning to believe their state may get shut out. "Am I concerned? Yes," said Richard E. Allen Jr., chief executive of Space Center Houston, the official visitor's center for Johnson Space Center, which is seeking a shuttle. "It's hard for me to contemplate that one wouldn't come here. But if the selection is based on something other than merit that could take away the advantage we would have being the home of the shuttle program." Houston's Capitol Hill delegation has grown concerned about President Barack Obama's little-noticed decision in early February to include $14 million in the Air Force budget to help the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, obtain the space shuttle Atlantis. A single paragraph in the armed service's 656-page budget called for funds "for preparation and delivery" of the retired shuttle to the museum, near the Wright Brothers' base of operations in Dayton. "The United States Air Force has played a central role in the development of space capabilities that are vital to national security, economic growth, public safety and welfare," the budget entry said. Geographic spread The president's decision to include the money served as "a recognition of the integral role Dayton has played" from the Wright Brothers' test flights to operations at Wright-Patterson Air Force base, said Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, a former mayor of Dayton. Texas' congressional members have interpreted this budgetary decision as a major blow to Texas' bid. "The reported decision to locate all three retired shuttles outside of Houston is extremely disappointing, especially when you consider the pivotal role Johnson Space Center has played throughout NASA's entire manned space flight program - particularly the shuttle," said U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. Presidential politics may have played a role in the administration's decision to forego reliably Republican Texas in favor of Ohio, a battleground state that in the last six presidential elections has backed a Democrat three times and a Republican three times. NASA maintains that administrator Charles Bolden will make the final decision, and spokesman Mike Curie reiterated Thursday that Bolden has not yet done so. Congress got involved the process last fall when Obama signed an authorization bill that included some guidelines for Bolden's decision. Priority consideration, the bill stated, should be given to locations "with the best potential value to the public," as well as those "with an historical relationship with either the launch, flight operations, or processing of the Space Shuttle orbiters or the retrieval of NASA manned space vehicles, or significant contributions to human space flight." If Ohio does get a shuttle, Texas probably won't. The Smithsonian Institution will receive space shuttle Discovery, the fleet leader, which just completed its final flight. That leaves just two orbiters for NASA to distribute. A fourth orbiter, Enterprise, never flew in space and is already on display at the Smithsonian. The museum will not keep two, and has the final say on where Enterprise will end up. There's a general sense that NASA and the Smithsonian will distribute the orbiters geographically to maximize public access, with one at Kennedy Space Center, one in the middle of the country and one on the West Coast. The concern among Houston's boosters is that Ohio could take the middle-of-the-country slot from Texas. Other leading candidates are New York City and Seattle. The Greater Houston Partnership is significantly ramping up its lobbying efforts. "It would be an outrage if it did not come here," said Denis Braham, chairman of a task force established by the partnership to support Houston's shuttle bid. "Whether it's too late or not, we don't know, but we want to make sure our effort is not too little." Drumming up support The partnership is working to engage city and county officials to lobby Congress, and are mobilizing astronauts and surviving family members of the Columbia and Challenger astronauts to speak out on Houston's behalf. They have also called upon the public to support the bid online by visiting the website bringtheshuttlehome.com. The protracted and increasingly political decision process by NASA, which sought proposals from museums more than two years ago and received at least 21 bids, is "unprecedented," said Robert Pearlman, who tracks space artifacts at collectSPACE.com, a space history website. Pearlman noted that when the Apollo program ended, NASA simply gave its three remaining Saturn V rockets to the Smithsonian, which in turn loaned them back to the Kennedy, Johnson and Marshall space centers. "Never in American history has there been as big of a contention over a set of artifacts as we're seeing in the battle for these shuttles," Pearlman said. Greg Williams [email protected] [email protected] _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
