Now that I think about it, I guess that leftover amount is probably needed for Human Research.

There’s actually nothing really wrong with considering that option as a source of revenue.

Witness the Titanic. You can purchase recovered pieces of coal from the disasterous wreck, were 1500-plus souls perished, for $25. No outcry there. Visit the farmlands of New Jersey and you’ll find antique shops occasionally selling twisted fragments of aluminum from the Hindenburg disaster. No tears over that. You can purchase salvaged bits from Liberty Bell 7 as well. And there’s no real rationale for continuing to warehouse at government expense the pieces of Apollo 1 either. It should be on display at the Smithsonian or sold off to collectors to raise revenue. The general locations of the spent Saturn V SI-C boosters are known as well and if a savvy salvage team sees a profit in it, they’ll make a try to locate any wreckage, match up wreckage to moonshot, and peddle it. It quite appropriate avenue to explore in the Age of Austerity.

Hmmm, in a quick look, the Exploration total and subheadings didn’t seem to add up. Does that mean NASA would have discretion where to allocate the remaining funds within Exploration?”

I interpret it as meaning ESMD has ~$200 million left over after paying for SLS, MPCV and COTS/CCDev for tech dev/demos and robotic precursors. But I could be wrong, especially since the language for the Space Technology Program under the Chief Technologist seems to give NASA the flexility to reassign some of that ~$500 million budget to ESMD as well. I doubt NASA will do that, but you never know.

FWIW…

The CR includes the following in the NASA section: “That the provisos limiting the use of funds under the heading ‘‘National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Exploration’’ in division B of Public Law 111–117 shall not apply to funds appropriated by this Act.” My interpretation is that refers to the prohibition in the FY10 appropriations bill that prevented NASA from canceling any element of Constellation, such as the Ares 1.

No one is “selling the shuttles”. Someone has to pay for the multi-million dollar modifications and transport necessary to prepare a orbiter for display.

Read, comprehend, and think before you post.

Attractive idea and had we got a reliable LEO crew transport to a Bigelow that could be something real fun to “visit” for the few who’d fly. But since you’d have to boost the thing back to orbit on a regular basis it might not be practicable (?).

More and more pathetic.

First museum in orbit.