Congress, NASA

Disappointment (and more) regarding shuttle museum decisions

In a post here last week, I noted that after NASA announced which sites will get shuttle orbiters when the fleet is retired this year, some would be disappointed—or worse—when they walk away empty-handed: “They—and their advocates in Congress—will want to know how NASA could have possibly overlooked the merits of their offer. All that could cause complications for NASA.” After NASA decided to award orbiters to the Smithsonian, KSC, the California Science Center in LA, and the Intrepid museum in New York, rejecting bids from Houston and Dayton, among other potential sites, that prediction is coming true.

Houston and its Congressional delegation, for example, is not taking this decision with equanimity. Instead, “disappointment” is the theme of the day: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) “expressed deep disappointment” over the decision, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) was also “deeply disappointed”, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) was “extremely disappointed”, and Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) said that “Disappointment doesn’t begin to describe my reaction” to the news. Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), while not using the “d” word, called it “truly tragic” and likened a Houston without a shuttle to “Detroit without a Model-T, or Florence without a da Vinci.”

They, and other Republicans (Democratic members of the state’s delegation kept a low profile when the news came out) blamed politics for the decision. “With this White House I always expect the worst and am rarely disappointed,” said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX). “It is blatantly political,” declared Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), noting the four states that received orbiters all voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008. Most, though, gave no indication they would try to overturn NASA’s decision, even while some raised the question of whether NASA followed the letter of the language in the NASA authorization act. “This ought not to be. But, that’s just the way it is,” Poe said in his statement. The exception was Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who said in a statement that he would ask for a hearing of the House Science Committee to investigate the process that led to the decision.

The mood was somewhat different in Ohio, where people also felt that they didn’t get a fair shake in the decisionmaking process. Rep. Steve Austria (R-OH) said he was “extremely disappointed” but, unlike his Texas colleagues, didn’t put a partisan spin on the decision in his statement. Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) indicated to the Dayton Daily News that he saw this as more of a geographical snub rather than a political one. “No one in the Midwest is going to have a shuttle,” he said. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) also complained about the lack of “regional diversity” in the selections: “Unfortunately, it looks like regional diversity amounts to which coast you are on, or which exit you use on I-95.” He added that it was “insulting to taxpayers” that some of the selected museums charge admission fees (the Air Force museum in Dayton does not.)

While most of the aggrieved Texas members showed no indication of fighting the decision, Ohio members including Sen. Brown and Reps. Austria and Turner, along with Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH), are taking action. The five signed a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), asking it to review NASA’s process to award the shuttle orbiters. “Specifically, we ask that GAO review how the disposition of the shuttle program related property carried out, and if NASA and the Smithsonian did so in accordance with all statutory and regulatory guidelines,” they state in the letter.

That review, and the heated Texas rhetoric, may do little or nothing to change the decisions made Tuesday. But it could make, at least in the near term, relations between the space agency and some members of Congress a little strained.

73 comments to Disappointment (and more) regarding shuttle museum decisions

  • E.P. Grondine

    Time to be upfront. As a historian, I’ve been talking at powwows about getting federal money to save the site of Tecumseh’s village at Greenvillle, Ohio. Its a site of national importance. Aside from that, the NPS budget has been zero, and the operation of major sites like Newark and Fort Ancient has been in chaos for several years.

    There’s even the lower costs like putting up signage for Florence Mound on the Natchez Trace.

    So when I see a billion here, a billion there for NASA with no reasonable reason given, I tend to get upset. Especially when the NASA budget for impactor detection is as close to $0 as Weiler can get it.

    What the shuttle disposition should have been:
    Kennedy, Florida
    Houston, Texas
    California – place of construction and landing
    the call between the Smithsonian and Dayton is a tough one, but I suppose Smithsonian has a small edge.

  • Alistair

    Curious as to what is going to happen to Enterprise, already at the Smithsonian. Perhaps give that to JSC? The California Science Center is a bit odd. CA could make a legitimate argument, given Edwards AFB shuttle operations. Perhaps the CSC was a compromise location, since Edwards is quite far away from a large population center. NY is strictly tourist option, though Intrepid already has fairly big draw, so why not throw someone else a bone? Heck, even White Sands, NM has a better connection to the shuttle program than NYC.

    My two cents.

  • SpaceColonizer

    I don’t feel very strongly about this issue but I’ll go ahead and say that I think Ohio should have gotten a shuttle. Brown mentioned at the FY12 budget hearing that it’s a pretty short drive from 60% of the nations population (don’t know how true that is), and I think that’s a pretty strong case. I think visability is important.

    Although, I do think that the visability should be based on people below a certain age. The shuttles are an important tool to insipre our growing youth to have more interest in STEM subjects. I guess high schools and earlier should be distributed evenly with the rest of the population, so should balance out.

    New York and DC will have a shuttle? I think we can take away one of the upper east coast’s shuttles (New York, obviously) and let “real America” have it.

  • reader

    All the shuttle hugging going around today is getting pretty nauseating

  • guest

    On the 10 PM Houston news a couple of Texas politicians are now asking for a GAO review of the process and decision.

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    Boo hoo! Do they have nothing better to do than worry about what they didn’t get? Sound like a bunch of spoiled children – worse they continue to waste time and resources which could be better spent on sorting out the deficit which gets bigger every day.

  • DCSCA

    “Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) “expressed deep disappointment” over the decision, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) was also “deeply disappointed”, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) was “extremely disappointed”, and Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) said that “Disappointment doesn’t begin to describe my reaction” to the news. Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), while not using the “d” word, called it “truly tragic” and likened a Houston without a shuttle to “Detroit without a Model-T, or Florence without a da Vinci.”… “While most of the aggrieved Texas members showed no indication of fighting the decision, Ohio members including Sen. Brown and Reps. Austria and Turner, along with Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH), are taking action.”

    The site selections are fine- major population centers that double as international tourist destinations on all points of the compass. LA, NYC, KSDC and Washington. Good choices. There’s little point in rewarding mediocre management in Texas with another space bauble anyway- they have JSC already- particularly when they compare wealthy Houston to all-but-broke-Detroit and a space shuttle to a ‘Model-T’. And the finest DiVinci’s are displayed at the Louvre in Paris, France, not Leo’s Paint & Frame Shoppe in Florence, Italy. Nor in Ohio, which both residents and tourists clamor to leave, not visit. Of course, there’s no doubt pieces of Columbia scattered about Texas are still worth finding and putting on display and, of course, there’s Challenger parts resting in a missile silo at the Cape either state could lay claim to. Or howzabout Apollo 1- after all, NASA’s been paying to warehouse the disassembled elements of that spacecraft for nearly 45 years. And if there’s a ‘free enterprising’ conservative Texan around, the remains/wreckage/debris of several SI-C stages from lunar missions of Saturn V moon rockets lay awaiting on the ocean floor for recovery, sale and/or display in some way, shape or form. Where’s all that capitalistic ‘free market’ initiative? Ballard and the Woods Hole Oceanagraphic Institute awaits your call. People pay $25 for fragments of coal from the Titanic, Texans.

    Get over it. The orbiters are going to population centers with big draws as tourist and vacation destinations. Texas and Ohio in July aren’t that.

  • Even Houston Chronicle reporter Eric Berger admitted in his blog that Houston submitted a belated bid and did a poor job of selling it.

    Apparently Houston had an arrogant attitude of entitlement and that probably cost them. I saw Rep. Pete Olson on TV yesterday just before the announcement demanding Houston get an orbiter. He said, “No city in the world deserves an orbiter more than Houston.” Really?! Not even the Space Coast? Y’know, where it’s actually launched? And where it actually lands?

  • I don’t know whether Gen. Bolden’s decisions were political or not, but I was rather surprised that NYC got Enterprise, given that NY had little to do during the shuttle era and the condition of the Intrepid museum.

    I also was surprised by the Texas “snub.” But when you live by the partisan political BS, you sometimes die by it.

  • NASA Fan

    Why are we as a nation so interested in making sure the world (international locations for each of the deposed Orbiters) knows about our space faring past?

    hmm…maybe its a way to distract folks from our space faring future? (which doesn’t exist)

    Ok…now I get it.

    Whew!

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Of course the decision was based on partisan, political considerations. There is no reason in the physical universe that we occupy that New York gets an orbiter and Houston does not.

  • Justin Kugler

    Yes, there is, Whittington. It was explained in yesterday’s press conference where the HQS staff that put together the recommendations for Bolden gave their rationale. Their goal was to display the Orbiters to the most visitors possible and give NASA the most visibility.

    New York is a cultural and tourism center for our country. Houston is a business town, first and foremost. I’ve lived in Houston most of my life. I love it here, but we do not have the draw that New York does. That’s just reality.

    We do not have an effective public transit system to handle increased tourism, especially not one that would support large numbers of tourists going from Hobby or Intercontinental to SCH. For that matter, SCH is a space-themed playground. To host a Shuttle and do it justice, they would have to make a museum-quality effort that I don’t even see with what they have already. The Starship Gallery is hidden behind a jungle gym.

    Instead of blaming everyone else for why Houston didn’t get a shuttle, I think we should be a bit more introspective. Our campaign largely consisted of appeals to emotion and a sense of entitlement. JSC doesn’t have exclusive rights to the Shuttles, though. If we wanted an Orbiter here that badly, we should have made a better case for it.

    What we should all be appalled by is that Congress seems to be more interested more posturing over this mess than actually passing a NASA budget that we can all live with and move forward on. Planning for our future is more important to me than dwelling on the past. Let the rest of America share in our history and accomplishments.

  • Bill Hensley

    As a lifelong Houstonian (my Dad worked for NASA during Apollo), I am of course “deeply disappointed” that Houston will not be the home of one of the shuttles. Someone mentioned “wealthy Houston” with a sneer. One dimension that you may not be thinking about is the many thousands of people in Houston who worked on the shuttle program, including the astronauts and their trainers, Mission Control and all their support staff, not to mention the families. It is a very personal loss to these people, as well as others like myself with strong emotional and personal ties to the space program. I will admit that this perhaps should not have been a deciding factor, but it is important to us. Here it is not mere civic pride, such as would motivate any community to host an artifact of such historic importance; here it is about family.

    That said, I appreciate the fact that the cities chosen are all major tourist destinations in their own right, and thus many people will have the opportunity to visit the shuttle exhibits. It may be time soon to make another “pilgrimage” to Kennedy Space Center or the Smithsonian! :)

  • GWM

    Anywhere but California.

    Houston.

    Dayton.

    Anywhere but California.

  • John Malkin

    I’m happy Chicago’s Adler will get a Shuttle simulator.

    http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/adler-feed/nasa-makes-shuttle-disposition-announcement

    This is how to be a graceful looser.

  • Chris

    I think it’s a bit striking to hear Texans decrying the politics of the decision. How did mission control end up in Houston in the 1963? Did it have something to do Johnson writing the enabling legislation in 1958? If you were designing a space program in the absence of politics would you put mission control near to a) your launch facility, b) where the space craft were designed or assembled so as to have ready access to engineering expertise in the case of emergency (Apollo 13, Columbia), c) the nations capital, d) near a cluster of top research universities, e) a (then) second tier city in a low human capital state?

  • Bill Dauphin

    I find the suggestion that the selections are based on electoral politics bizarre in the extreme: First, I wish enough ordinary voters actually cared about space for something like this to be valuable in electoral terms, but I don’t believe that to be the case. And second… if it were the case, wouldn’t that have sent a Shuttle to Dayton? You know, a key swing state in a key swing region?

    I don’t particularly like these choices, but I understand them, and it doesn’t have anything to do with politics: In picking California and NYC over Dayton and Houston, they’ve chosen tourist exposure over historical significance. Not the choice I would’ve made, but not indefensible, either.

    BTW, anyone suggesting that NASM not get a Shuttle is smoking something: It’s the greatest aerospace museum in the world, and the most popular, and it’s part of our premier national network of museums. It has a better claim even than KSC.

  • amightywind

    JSC was politically out flanked, without a doubt. New York has very little connection with the shuttle program. Its selection as a final home for Enterprise is incongruous at best. But Enterprise is only a skanky test article though, not in the same league with the remaining flight vehicles. It is not worth getting excited about.

    My problem with JSC is they have no facilities to house an orbiter. The outdoor Saturn V display is a depressing travesty, especially compared to the beautiful facility at KSC.

    second tier city in a low human capital state?

    Interesting. The Northeast can claim the lunar lander (Grumman) as well as guidance and computing (IBM and Draper). Aside from that, Apollo was built by engineers from low human capital states in the south as well as southern California. The shuttle program has almost no roots in there. The Northeast has clearly devolved as a driver for technological innovation in the last 50 years, the result of slow economic strangulation by liberal union politics.

  • Das Boese

    Why the surprise about NY? It’s the most populous city in your country and the number one destination for international tourism. Duh.

    Sure, NY doesn’t have a lot of space history, but then again, they get the one that never actually went to space.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ April 13th, 2011 at 7:19 am
    Of course the decision was based on partisan, political considerations. There is no reason in the physical universe that we occupy that New York gets an orbiter and Houston does not.

    yes there is people go to the Intrepid museum and not to space center Houston…Greetings from San Fran. Robert G. Oler

  • Bill Hensley

    My problem with JSC is they have no facilities to house an orbiter. The outdoor Saturn V display is a depressing travesty, especially compared to the beautiful facility at KSC.

    Just for the record, they fixed that about ten years ago. The Saturn V is now housed indoors and has been restored. However, I emphatically agree that it was a travesty to let it sit rotting outdoors in the Gulf Coast weather for so many years.

  • reader

    I hear Russia has a few spare orbiters that they are glad to sell to Houston for a reasonable fee .. one of them has actually been to orbit.

  • guest

    “I don’t particularly like these choices, but I understand them,”

    I do not understand the rationale for NYC. The idea that there is a historic connection between NYC and Shuttle is ludicrous., The idea that it enables more people nationally or internationally to see a Shuttle is ludicrous since Smithsonian is just down the road a couple of hours. Whether or not Houston was the right choice, NYC was the wrong choice.

    I hope there is an investigation and that heads roll.

  • DCSCA

    GWM wrote @ April 13th, 2011 at 10:35 am

    “Anywhere but California.”

    Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour were all built there. A significant percentage of the missions landed there.
    And Los Angeles is the second largest population center in the nation as well as a major vacation/tourist destination.

    But for the conservative conspiracy clan, Operation Mickey Mouse is a success; there will be a shuttle at KSC near Disneyworld/Orlando…. and a shuttle in LA near Disneyland/ Anaheim. Sinister stuff.

  • DCSCA

    @Mark R. Whittington wrote @ April 13th, 2011 at 7:19 am
    “There is no reason in the physical universe that we occupy that New York gets an orbiter and Houston does not.”

    If it’s any consolation, Enterprise isn’t anything to crow over. People go to New York. People leave Houston.

  • amightywind

    People go to New York. People leave Houston.

    I don’t know if you noticed but New York lost 2 House seats and Texas gained 4 in the last census. New York is well on its way to becoming Detroit.

  • Chris

    Mighty wind: “Aside from that, Apollo was built by engineers from low human capital states in the south as well as southern California. The shuttle program has almost no roots in there.”

    I’m not trying to argue the merits of the Enterprise decision, I’m saying the only reason JSC exists is because of politics. Obviously Houston and the south generally have come a long way, in part because of NASA funding. And probably the most critical human capital was in Huntsville, but it originated in Germany and was put there by the federal government. Arguably we would have been better served if Von Braun had been set up in Southern California, or St. Louis or the North East to build on and enrich an existing knowledge base. This I find the cry of “politics” from a state that’s been milking NASA for 50 years funny.

  • John Malkin

    reader wrote @ April 13th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
    I hear Russia has a few spare orbiters that they are glad to sell to Houston for a reasonable fee .. one of them has actually been to orbit.

    No, it was destroyed in a roof cave-in.

  • John Malkin

    New York is the largest city in US, LA second largest, Disney World in Florida one of the highest tourist attractions in US. KSC is really close to Orlando and I have driven that route many times. BTW Chicago is third largest city but I’m happy. I say no partisan politics and no space state politics either this time.

  • Paul Snyder

    The pols say it was politics, well, the whole space program is now run on politics. It shouldn’t be a surprise. Personally, I am disappointed about the progress of the entire program because of politics. Just an opinion.

  • common sense

    Oh yeah Houston a tourist destination for sure. Its sweet summer days, never below 90/100 with 100% humidity. Its flash floods. Its freezing rain. Its heat exhaustion warnings at Hermann park for the joggers. Now. There is this BBQ place on Kirby if memory serves well. BUT. The parking lot may be a little too small for an orbiter. I don’t know. Sweet Houston for sure.

  • Bill Dauphin

    I do not understand the rationale for NYC. The idea that there is a historic connection between NYC and Shuttle is ludicrous., The idea that it enables more people nationally or internationally to see a Shuttle is ludicrous since Smithsonian is just down the road a couple of hours.

    [1] There may not be a historical connection between NYC and Shuttle, but there is a historical connection between Intrepid (the ship) and NASA’s human spaceflight program… and don’t forget the larger aerospace history in the NY metro area. My dad was a NASA engineer, and he often traveled to Long Island to visit major contractors (esp. Grumman) there.

    [2] It’s “ludicrous” to think an exhibit will get more visitors in the nation’s largest and most visited city? SRSLY??

    [3] Your proximity argument would make a better case for cutting DC than NYC… except that it would be insane not to put a Shuttle in the greatest aerospace museum in the world. Somehow the presence of the rest of the Smithsonian museums in DC doesn’t render NYC’s great museums — the Met, MOMA, Natural History, the Rose Center, the Guggenheim, etc. — irrelevant. Have you actually driven those “couple hours” down the road? It’s more like 3 or 4 hours (potentially much more, depending on time of day) through harrowing, enervating traffic. It’s almost as long by train (and once you get to DC, there’s no easy way to get to Udvar-Hazy by train), and the train costs as much as flying. I seriously doubt many NYC tourist visitors take a side-trip to DC.

    Mind you, I would’ve put Shuttles in Houston and Dayton instead of NYC and California… but to claim there’s no rationale for what they’ve done is just silly.

  • mike I

    course NYC is already complaining that they got Enterprise instead of a flown orbiter. talk about being ungrateful.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/04/13/2011-04-13_new_york_deserves_better_than_fake_enterprise_shuttle_prototype_while_la_va_get_.html

  • bill

    It is truely amazing that almost every one of you speak as if
    you are experts on everthing space. Almost everything yall
    say is really opinion… just like a holes… evry body’s got one
    of course.

    The AP101 GPC was built in Owego… NEW YORK.
    THERE IS A CONNECTION?

  • Howard Dancer

    Tell me, how can Dayton,Ohio, THE HOME OF AVIATION where flight was born get snubbed like that?…NY,CA, get one ??? I don’t know much about history,but i know the origin of flight to what it is today,originated in Dayton,Ohio!!! NY,CA. getting shuttles & Dayton SNUBBED?….Something don’t smell right.

  • Major Tom

    “Tell me, how can Dayton,Ohio, THE HOME OF AVIATION where flight was born get snubbed like that?…NY,CA, get one ??? I don’t know much about history,but i know the origin of flight to what it is today,originated in Dayton,Ohio!!! NY,CA. getting shuttles & Dayton SNUBBED?….Something don’t smell right.”

    By that logic, a Shuttle should have gone to North Carolina since Kitty Hawk was the site of the Wright Flyer’s first, powered flights, not Dayton, Ohio.

    FWIW…

  • Coastal Ron

    Howard Dancer wrote @ April 13th, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    Tell me, how can Dayton,Ohio, THE HOME OF AVIATION where flight was born get snubbed like that?…NY,CA, get one ???

    OK, the Wright Brothers patented their airplane in Dayton, but how many Shuttle orbiters has Dayton built? All of them were built in the Los Angeles area, and the initial drop tests with Enterprise were done at Edwards AFB near Los Angeles. So you could say that Shuttle Endeavour is going back to it’s birthplace to retire.

    I do think it’s unfortunate that there weren’t any placed in the middle of the country, but it seems like one of the overriding goals was to put them where the most amount of public could visit them. And though I’m sure Dayton is a nice place to visit, I don’t think it’s a big tourist draw on it’s own. Same with Houston.

    What do you think was Dayton’s biggest reasons for getting one of the orbiters?

  • common sense

    @ Howard Dancer wrote @ April 13th, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    ” I don’t know much about history,but i know the origin of flight to what it is today,originated in Dayton,Ohio!!! ”

    Ah I see. Well I think you had it right first: You don’t know much about history. On the other hand it is written on the license plates in Ohio right?

    “Something don’t smell right.”

    Right. They say fish rot from the head. Could be what you are smelling.

    Now on a personal note I agree that Kitty Hawk has more relevance to aviation. So maybe we ought to have an orbiter there at the museum and we could park it at FFA. What d’y’all say? We’d have to cut a few trees though. Don’t know how it’s gonna go there. And there probably are far more people visiting the Outer Banks than Houston or even possibly Galveston for vacation. NASA Langley isn’t too far either. Which makes me think that we could have an orbiter at the museum in Hampton too, or on Mercury Boulevard with the other rockets there. Now speaking of the Wright Brothers, they were very much inspired by Otto Lilienthal who was born in Prussia. So maybe just maybe an orbiter ought to be at Lilienthal’s birthplace. No political choice then. On the other hand I hope Otto was not in any way inspired by the work of Leonardo because otherwise we might have to put an orbiter somewhere near Florence, Italy, or even worse in Amboise, France. Then we’d have to say that the Wrights were not actually first but possibly rather Clement Ader… I am getting tired of all those thoughts in my poor brain.

    Anywho….

  • Doug Lassiter

    If I were NASA Administrator, I could drop an antique orbiter on people who know and love it, and who would love it wherever it was, or I could drop it on parts of the country that offered the greatest opportunity to expand the number of Americans who could call themselves human space flight afficionados. In it’s tradition as a pioneering vehicle, breaking new ground for human space flight, New York and LA seem good choices for that reason. With regard to those sites, I’m pleased to see the shuttles in a continuing role as tools for advancing the national interest in human space flight, rather than as prizes or trophies.

    Given that, I guess my question is why KSC got one. I have huge admiration for the support of the Shuttle program at KSC, but human space flight needs fans, not monuments.

  • Bill Dauphin

    Coastal Ron:

    What do you think was Dayton’s biggest reasons for getting one of the orbiters?

    Well, nothing to do with the Wright Bros., as you point out… but the Air Force was a major partner/client in the Shuttle program. Couple that with Dayton being accessible to the whole Midwest and the Air Force Museum being (IMHO) the second greatest aerospace museum on the planet, and there’s a strong case.

    OTOH, more people will see an Orbiter in NYC or SoCal than would in Dayton (NASM and KSC were mortal locks all along, and properly so).

  • Bill Dauphin

    Doug:

    I guess my question is why KSC got one. …human space flight needs fans, …

    Because for the people who think human spaceflight is kinda’ cool, but who don’t know much about it — the casual fans, to borrow a sports term — KSC is the one space-related destination they’ll actually visit. If you want to turn casual fans into passionate ones, you’ve gotta be where they go.

    …not monuments.

    But history does need monuments, and as much as NASM is the greatest aerospace museum in the world, KSC/Cape Canaveral is the most important historical site for human spaceflight.

  • Michael Kent

    Coastal Ron wrote:

    OK, the Wright Brothers patented their airplane in Dayton…

    They did more than just patent their airplane there. It was at Huffman Prairie (near Dayton) that they worked out the mechanics of controlled flight — how to take off, how to land, how to pitch, roll, yaw. The result of those 150 test flights in 1904 and 1905 was the first practical airplane.

    What do you think was Dayton’s biggest reasons for getting one of the orbiters?

    It’s home of the second most prestigious aerospace museum in the world (after the Smithsonian). The Air Force museum has a far larger collection of aerospace products than the New York and SoCal museums combined, its collection of historically significant airplanes is much, much larger, and it has a world-class restoration facility to maintain its collection. It also has an already-funded indoor facility to house an orbiter.

    And though I’m sure Dayton is a nice place to visit, I don’t think it’s a big tourist draw on it’s own.

    The Air Force Museum attracts about 1.3 million visitors a year. That’s over a quarter million more visitors each year than the Intrepid.

    I’ve been to both the Intrepid and the Air Force Museum. They’re not even in the same league.

    Mike

  • Doug Lassiter wrote:

    Given that, I guess my question is why KSC got one. I have huge admiration for the support of the Shuttle program at KSC, but human space flight needs fans, not monuments.

    The mission of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is to educate and inspire people to support the U.S. human space flight program. Seems to me having an actual orbiter as part of an interpretive exhibit alongside artifacts from Mercury, Gemini and Apollo is only logical.

    In fact, the only place in the world I can think of that would rival KSCVC as a space museum is the National Air and Space Museum in D.C. The difference is it actually happened here, and people can get on a bus to go see where it happened — and will happen again one day. Can’t do that in Houston or D.C. or New York or Dayton or (fill in the name of your least favorite porking member of Congress).

  • common sense

    I think some are missing the point here. Okay so the decision was made. The tourists that visit Dayton no matter how great a museum only are a subset of the people who visit NYC or LA for that matter. But even that is not the point.

    The point is a GAO investigation? Really? This is what we should be using our precious little government dollars to do? We have so much that we can afford to spend time and money doing that? Some people have to justify their wages I am sure but please…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton,_Ohio#Tourism
    “Tourism visiting Montgomery County accounted for $1.7 billion in business activity in 2007. ”
    “The museum draws over 1.3 million visitors per year and is one of the single most visited tourist attractions in Ohio.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City#Tourism
    “In 2010, New York City had a record number of tourists with 48.7 million.”
    http://www.nycgo.com/?event=view.article&id=78912
    “Visitor spending (international and domestic) in 2010: $31.0 billion”

    “http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2006_1st/Jan06_LATourism.html
    Jan. 4, 2005 — A record 24.9 million tourists visited Los Angeles last year and provided a $12.7 billion boost to the local economy, and city officials said Tuesday the figure is expected to grow this year.”

  • Doug Lassiter

    I’ll bite.

    The mission of ALL museums is to educate and inspire people. In order to do that effectively for human space flight, it hardly seems necessary to have all historical artifacts in one place. I’m just saying that a museum in NYC or in the LA area can be visited by many more people than can a museum at the Cape. I’m not arguing that having a real orbiter alongside other historical artifacts isn’t “logical”. Sure, it’s logical, from the point of view of a “collection”. I’m just saying it may not be in the best interest of maximizing engagement of the U.S. taxpayer in human space flight — if that’s the goal. It certainly doesn’t contribute to human space flight as being seen as a national (as opposed to regional) activity, which is a pretty desperate problem that human space flight now has.

    OK, history needs monuments. You’re right about that. But if I were NASA Administrator, my motivation shouldn’t be history, but in maximizing taxpayer appreciation about human space flight. I think you all are saying that can be done better (though for fewer people) at the Cape. Better but fewer? That’s a judgement call. Perhaps those Mercury, Gemini and Apollo craft down there could do that work for more people as well if they were elsewhere. The historical collectivists and archivists would be offended by that thought, but I’ll say it anyway.

    As to casual versus passionate fans, puleeeeze. The passionate ones will go to wherever the orbiters are. The casual ones are the ones you want to create. Do I care about turning casual fans into passionate ones? Probably not. A passionate fan has one vote, just like the casual fan does.

    I submit to you that the orbiters can be considered active tools for human space flight (in promoting the enterprise), as opposed to historical monuments that passionate fans can go kiss and bow down to on hallowed ground.

    Look, I don’t want to start a huge argument about this. It actually isn’t that important to me. I just want to point out that the siting of the orbiters can be considered from the point of view of history, as an archivist would, or from the point of view of maximizing taxpayer engagement in something we’d like to believe is an ongoing national activity. Now, I’m not naive about the political forces at work here. Those forces were probably a major decision factor. I’m just saying that once you look beyond those, it isn’t quite as clear as one might think.

  • Matt Wiser

    Tough call in any event. LA I can understand; it’s close to Edwards, and there were plants in the area that did build subassemblies for all of the orbiters. It’s also more accessable than Edwards AFB. Pre 9-11, there were some back roads that one drive onto the base-and one of ‘em led to the old public viewing area back when the first shuttle flights landed there. Not anymore. Even the Flight Test Center Museum is being relocated outside the base security perimeter.

    NYC is purely a tourist driven decision. JSC deserves an orbiter, and if Discovery is going to Udar-Hazy, Enterprise ought to go to JSC.

  • Bennett

    “JSC deserves an orbiter”

    Wayne Hale thinks otherwise: HERE

  • NASA Fan

    @ Doug Lassiter: “maximizing engagement of the U.S. taxpayer in human space flight” ….. “But if I were NASA Administrator, my motivation shouldn’t be history, but in maximizing taxpayer appreciation about human space flight”.

    I am not sure I understand how if an American Tax Payer goes to see a Orbiter in a museum they would walk away with more appreciation and more engagement in human space flight?

    If you want them engaged, in a way that will make a difference today, get them involved in what is happening now. Not sure seeing a relic of the past will do that.

  • Doug Lassiter wrote:

    I’m just saying that a museum in NYC or in the LA area can be visited by many more people than can a museum at the Cape.

    Um … Have you ever actually BEEN here?

    (And to be technically accurate, KSC is *not* at “the Cape.” That’s the Air Force Station, which has its own museum. KSCVC is on Merritt Island.)

    KSCVC is about 40 minutes from Orlando, a major tourist destination. Not only do we have Disney, Sea World, Universal, etc. but Port Canaveral (just south of the Air Force station) is one of the largest cruise ship ports in the U.S.

    You should learn more about the area before you assume no one comes here.

  • ok then

    NASA is partially in Texas for political reasons already. The clue is in the name of JSC. Why would they be rewarded for past political victories again and again? That’s somewhat of a circular argument. NASA is funded by the nation and every state should have a shot at it’s fruits.

    And isnt the yearly dump of federal dollars into space states enough of a reward for them?

    .

  • amightywind

    Funny, U.S. James Inhofe, the Republican porker from Oklahoma, says Tulsa is the aviation capital

    Maybe not the capital but the central plains are an interesting concentration of aviation manufacturers: Tulsa, Wichita, Independence KS, Olathe, Cedar Rapids, Duluth. An amazing number of aviation entrepreneurs can ‘off the farm’ in the 20th century.

  • GWM

    DCSCA, yeah, lots of stuff gets put together in Calif, but if anything, the State of fantasy, make believe and celluloid heroes should get Enterprise, the Shuttle that pretended to go into space.

  • Bill Dauphin

    Doug:

    I’m not sure how much we really disagree, but it’s an interesting conversation.

    I’m just saying that a museum in NYC or in the LA area can be visited by many more people than can a museum at the Cape.

    Sure, that’s basically what I said originally: The choice of NYC and LA (over JSC and Dayton) was driven by a desire to maximize tourist exposure instead of honoring history.

    But I think KSC is actually a no-brainer on both counts: Not only is it the single best site from a historical POV, it’s also the one place in the whole world that is universally identified as a space-related tourist destination. And while Cocoa Beach or Titusville, per se will never rival NYC or LA as a tourist draw, Florida does… particularly the Orlando area. And, unlike the “couple hours down the road” argument for DC from NYC, KSC really is an easy side-trip from Mouse-world; lots of visitors do both… and lots of international visitors go to central Florida who never go to NYC or CA. Finally, from a somewhat geeky POV, AFAIK KSC is the only place that has artifacts from the entire NASA human spaceflight program: Both Mercury launch vehicles, Gemini-Titan, and both Saturns… not to mention the launch sites for all of the above. Not putting an Orbiter there would be like having a complete set of cookware… except for the skillet.

    As to casual versus passionate fans, puleeeeze. The passionate ones will go to wherever the orbiters are.

    Sure. That’s why places like Edwards would’ve been a bad idea: Only people who are already hardcore space geeks would go find it there. This is also a potential argument against Dayton: As great as the Air Force Museum is, I suspect it draws its visitors mostly from the ranks of True Believers™… unlike NASM, which draws damn near everyone. Mind you, I would put an Orbiter in Dayton anyway, but then again, I’m one of those true believers.

    The casual ones are the ones you want to create. Do I care about turning casual fans into passionate ones? Probably not. A passionate fan has one vote, just like the casual fan does.

    Here I do disagree. Both sorts of “fans” have the same one vote each, it’s true… but the passionate fans vote pro-space, and they write their members of Congress, and they argue back when their clueless friends talk about how worthless human spaceflight is, compared to “all the problems we have right here on Earth.”

    If you ask me to choose between taking people who care nothing about space and showing them something that makes them think, in a casual way, that spaceflight is kinda’ cool… or taking people who already think (casually) that spaceflight is kinda’ cool and making them think it’s vital and worth fighting for… I’ll take the latter every time.

    You said “space needs fans,” and I agreed… but what space really needs is not so much fans as advocates. IMHO, casual space fans who’re blown away by what they see at KSC are far more likely to become advocates than tourists who stop by the Intrepid museum to fill up a couple hours between lunch and a Broadway show.

    I submit to you that the orbiters can be considered active tools for human space flight (in promoting the enterprise), as opposed to historical monuments that passionate fans can go kiss and bow down to on hallowed ground.

    How lucky for us, then, that there are four of them (yes, Enterprise counts), so we can afford to use them for both jobs.

  • common sense

    @ Bill Dauphin wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 11:29 am

    “when their clueless friends talk about how worthless human spaceflight is, compared to “all the problems we have right here on Earth.””

    Yet another disparaging comment to those who actually fund NASA. Very smart. I hope they read once in a while what you “true believer” write about the public. And yes there are way many more problems here on Earth than anything human space flight related. Get a grip.

    “If you ask me to choose between taking people who care nothing about space and showing them something that makes them think, in a casual way, that spaceflight is kinda’ cool… or taking people who already think (casually) that spaceflight is kinda’ cool and making them think it’s vital and worth fighting for… I’ll take the latter every time.”

    Oh sure and this strategy is paying off big time right? People like you it appears to me are those who criticized this WH for killing HSF even though they tried to increase its budget which the previous WH did not even bother despite the VSE.

    “what space really needs is not so much fans as advocates. ”

    Absolutely not. We have enough advocates like this. The Moon first, the Mars first, the NEO first, the LEO first, the Battlestar Galactica first, the Area 51 first. How many more advocates do you need? To do what? Confuse the issues a little more for our Congress leaders?

    “casual space fans who’re blown away by what they see at KSC are far more likely to become advocates ”

    That is your mistaken thought. Those who actually go to KSC are not casual fans. If you have to drive 40 mn to see anything you are not a casual fan. You already are a space cadet in some form. Those we already have, way too many if you ask me. Because we do not need more space fans we need more educated fans, we need more people who can bring critical thinking to this endeavor not those who truly believe we were going to Mars before this WH, not those who think that without wings we cannot explore, not those who think that without nukes we cannot explore, not those who think that advocacy is the same as support.

    Oh well…

  • Lt Col Rob Hecht, USAF

    As a native-born Ohioan, USAF active-duty member, former Nat’l Museum of the USAF Volunteer (I helped retore aircraft and gave tours while assigned at Wright-Patterson AFB) and US Space advocate the decision not to send an orbiter to the world-class museum in Dayton is both a travesty and a slap in the face. Far more than any other location with the possible exception of Kennedy Space Center, the Nat’l Museum of the USAF has the means to display, educationally present, maintain, and if necessary over time to restore this incredible piece of technology and US space achievement.

    Additionally, the USAF by far (considering all the military services and other Gov’t agencies involved excluding NASA) supported the Shuttle program through all of its phases developmentally and operationally…right up to the last flight coming in June! USAF personnel deploy to alternate worldwide emergency landing sites. We support launch (45th Space Wing and SAR personnel) and landing (Edwards and KSC). The Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) at Vandenburg AFB backs up Mission Control in case of emegency and facilitate US DoD space ops in support Shuttle Ops.

    Three orbiters on the east coast and one on the west coast is proper consideration of the geography this decision was to address? I don’t think so! I agree with the location of three of the orbiters…but the USS Intrepid and NYC? The USS Intrepid is a museum that charges an entry fee! I know KSC charges a fee, but I personally know staff members there and see up close what they do with the proceeds. KSC is a ONE OF A KIND facility and the educational programs there are second to none…and it require finances to ensure they stay that way. Intrepid is one of FOUR Essex class carriers still around and gets fewer visitors than KSC, Smithsonian and the Nat’l Museum of the USAF!

    Bottomline: Ohio and the National Museum of the USAF deserved an orbiter and should have been selected!

    Sincerely,
    Robert Hecht, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

  • common sense

    @ Lt Col Rob Hecht, USAF wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    In what way do you make a case for an orbiter? Because you are an USAF Lieutenant Colonel originally from Ohio? Please.

    The orbiter on display in NYC will be there for the world to see if it means anything to you. You know the world. Not Ohio, not NYC, not the US, the world. Because the world visits NYC, not Dayton.

    There is no “slap in the face”. You are way too emotional with that.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 8:53 am
    “Um … Have you ever actually BEEN here?”

    It’s been a while, but yes. I know loads of people who haven’t — and there’s the problem. How many people in the New England or California area have been there? Oh, BTW, there is another Disney attraction in SoCal. Yep, the original. I’ve been to that one too.

    “(And to be technically accurate, KSC is *not* at “the Cape.” That’s the Air Force Station, which has its own museum. KSCVC is on Merritt Island.)”

    Thank you. That’s correct.

    “You should learn more about the area before you assume no one comes here.”

    That’s unfair. I never said that “no one comes here”. I’m just saying that more people, especially more people who have never had much exposure to space, come to or are in, NYC and LA. BTW, I don’t live in New England or California.

    Bill Dauphin wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 11:29 am
    “But I think KSC is actually a no-brainer on both counts: Not only is it the single best site from a historical POV, it’s also the one place in the whole world that is universally identified as a space-related tourist destination.”

    I’m sorry, but if you want to expand interest in HSF, and bring it into peoples lives, creating space-related uber-tourist destinations isn’t the way to do it. If you want to create a space flight memorial park, then go for it. Let’s try for a some-brainer.

    “Not putting an Orbiter there would be like having a complete set of cookware… except for the skillet.”

    Spoken like an archivist, and not a marketer. Again, if this is about designing a historical exhibit, or about how “logical” their placement is, then KSC richly deserves one. But I’d like to believe that’s not what it’s about.

    I’ll agree to disagree about fans versus advocates. We have loads of space advocates right now, most of whom are concentrated in a few southern locales. And yet we still have a Congress whose enthusiasm for HSF is motivated primarily by pork, and not by excitement about what they call exploration. Know what? “Advocates”, as passionate and hardworking as they are, don’t seem to be doing the job. I’d like a lot more people who can simply say, “yep, human space flight is what our nation does, and we’re proud of it” without pointing at a gantry.

    Oh, and if seeing a “relic of the past” won’t get people engaged, then just strip ‘em down and sell ‘em for scrap. Shuttles that have been in space within the last year are, in fact, barely relics of the past. In fact, many people argue that we should keep using them. I don’t believe anyone is saying that about Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules, which are truly relics of the past.

    Look, I think space will be well served by having a Shuttle at KSCVC. I just suggest public engagement in human space flight might be served better by having it elsewhere. I think that’s what Wayne Hale was getting at as well, re JSC.

    I think this is an interesting discussion, and I just wanted to gently lob a small grenade onto some presumptions and get some discussion going about what we’re really after here.

  • Bill Dauphin

    common sense:

    You’ve managed to fairly comprehensively miss my point. More than one of my points, in fact.

    when their clueless friends talk about how worthless human spaceflight is, compared to “all the problems we have right here on Earth.”

    Yet another disparaging comment to those who actually fund NASA. Very smart..

    Not disparaging at all: I didn’t say stupid, I said clueless… and I meant it literally, in reference to people (the majority of our population, I’m afraid) who don’t have a clue about the true value of human spaceflight, because it’s not something they’ve had occasion to think hard about. Public policy is complicated and coveres a huge range of subjects, and most of us are clueless (in the sense I’m using) about most of it. This is why it’s important to have opinion shapers who are not clueless, and who are passionate enough to talk to their fellow citizens about their interests.

    And yes there are way many more problems here on Earth than anything human space flight related.

    Sure there are… but the idea that solving domestic terrestrial problems and exploring space represent a zero-sum choice is a false premise. Exploration (generally) enriches human societies, and HSF in particular drives technological innovation, creates beneficial economic activity (because money spent on space isn’t spent in space), and encourages young people to study STEM fields.

    IOW, space exploration helps solve terrestrial problems, rather than competing with them. And for those of us who support investment in HSF, it’s a Very Good Thing® to have more and more people out there who are ready to make this case to their family, neighbors, Facebook friends, etc., who might otherwise be ambivalent (if not actively hostile) to spaceflight when they go to vote.

    People like you it appears to me are those who criticized this WH for killing HSF even though they tried to increase its budget which the previous WH did not even bother despite the VSE.

    You mostly lost me at “[p]eople like you,” because I don’t think you know anything about me, nor about how I feel about “this WH” on the issue of space policy. In fact, it seems as if you’re using my post as a convenient target for arguments that are actually unrelated to anything I’ve said in this thread. I don’t know who, exactly, pissed in your cornflakes this morning, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.

    Of course, I’ve been posting (under my actual name, unlike some) at various space-related sites for years, so it would be possible for you to know something about me and my positions… but if you did, you’d probably know that I was an enthusiastic supporter (and campaign volunteer) for “this WH,” and I have not been a critic of the administration’s space policy. Turn’s out I’m not actually one of the “people like [me]”; strange, eh?

    How many more advocates do you need? To do what? Confuse the issues a little more for our Congress leaders?

    I said advocates, not lobbyists, and what we need them to do is spread the word among their fellow voters. Let the experts (real ones, I mean, not the self-appointed punditocracy) argue over mission goals and architectures; all Congress needs to know from the public is that we’re interested and supportive of HSF, and willing to factor that into our votes.

    Those who actually go to KSC are not casual fans. If you have to drive 40 mn to see anything you are not a casual fan. You already are a space cadet in some form.

    Well, I admittedly don’t have numbers to prove it, but I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about this. Oh, there’s certainly a significant percentage of KSC area visitors who are “space cadets” (now who’s being disparaging, eh?) on a pilgrimage… but huge numbers are also tourists who’ve come to Florida for the races in Daytona (just to the north) or for the Orlando-area parks (just to the west) or for a cruise leaving out of Port Canaveral or just because it’s frickin’ Florida, and who go to KSC because it’s part of “what you do” when you’re in that part of the world. Everytime I’ve been there, there’s been plenty of visitors who were not obviously (and in many cases, obviously not) preexisting “space cadets.”

  • common sense

    @ Bill Dauphin wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    “You’ve managed to fairly comprehensively miss my point. More than one of my points, in fact.”

    Okay let’s see.

    “Not disparaging at all: I didn’t say stupid, I said clueless… and I meant it literally, in reference to people (the majority of our population, I’m afraid) who don’t have a clue about the true value of human spaceflight, because it’s not something they’ve had occasion to think hard about.”

    Are you playing words? “Clueless”? But hey okay I will take it it was not intended as offensive, but you know, how about uninformed? Anyway.

    “Public policy is complicated and coveres a huge range of subjects, and most of us are clueless (in the sense I’m using) about most of it. This is why it’s important to have opinion shapers who are not clueless, and who are passionate enough to talk to their fellow citizens about their interests.”

    How do you define those who are not clueless? Any experience with human spacecraft design? Because I read a lot of opinions from a lot of people, advocates, passionate at that, who claim to be informed but are as clueless as the next citizen to use your expression. I see a Congress that is designing by committee that is clueless and far more so than any citizen since it is supposed to be their job to make educated decision.

    “Sure there are… but the idea that solving domestic terrestrial problems and exploring space represent a zero-sum choice is a false premise. ”

    That is not true. When you have a sum of money to try and resolve many problems but far more important problems than human spaceflight then it is normal to cut somewhere. In this instance human space flight.

    “Exploration (generally) enriches human societies, and HSF in particular drives technological innovation, creates beneficial economic activity (because money spent on space isn’t spent in space), and encourages young people to study STEM fields.”

    This is only half true. There are many more inspiring technological fields for the youth than space. Do you know that most aerospace grad school are populated with non-US citizens? Ever wondered why? Just because we are not building a new HLV? What do you think? Go visit SpaceX and come back tell me how to make the youth go for Aerospace.

    “IOW, space exploration helps solve terrestrial problems, rather than competing with them. And for those of us who support investment in HSF, it’s a Very Good Thing® to have more and more people out there who are ready to make this case to their family, neighbors, Facebook friends, etc., who might otherwise be ambivalent (if not actively hostile) to spaceflight when they go to vote.”

    The problem with that reasoning is that no one has shown it so far. These are words with no support.

    “You mostly lost me at “[p]eople like you,” because I don’t think you know anything about me, nor about how I feel about “this WH” on the issue of space policy. In fact, it seems as if you’re using my post as a convenient target for arguments that are actually unrelated to anything I’ve said in this thread. I don’t know who, exactly, pissed in your cornflakes this morning, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.”

    I agree I digressed but I know what you posted here. No you did not do that to my cornflakes, I actually ate something else. Let’s say that I am generally upset at the state of the space affairs. And when I read some lecturing comments it tends to get me started.

    “Of course, I’ve been posting (under my actual name, unlike some) at various space-related sites for years, so it would be possible for you to know something about me and my positions… but if you did, you’d probably know that I was an enthusiastic supporter (and campaign volunteer) for “this WH,” and I have not been a critic of the administration’s space policy. Turn’s out I’m not actually one of the “people like [me]“; strange, eh?”

    Good for you that you have the luxury to post under your own name. Any idea why some of us cannot? Do you actually work in this business? But as I said and I granted to you I got a jump start on some of your comments. So I will apologize to that particular remark about your support.

    “I said advocates, not lobbyists, and what we need them to do is spread the word among their fellow voters. Let the experts (real ones, I mean, not the self-appointed punditocracy) argue over mission goals and architectures; all Congress needs to know from the public is that we’re interested and supportive of HSF, and willing to factor that into our votes.”

    Well I agree with that BUT the advocates do not seem, to me, to support space exploration. Rather they support one rocket or another. They support the Moon so to speak not the effective way to go there. So yes we need some advocacy but we need more educated advocacy.

    “Well, I admittedly don’t have numbers to prove it, but I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about this. ”

    I don’t have numbers either but I visited places, significant for space where no one would go or not that many people. If you have to drive 40 mn away from Disney with your whole family to go see KSC, you are not a casual fan.

    “Oh, there’s certainly a significant percentage of KSC area visitors who are “space cadets” (now who’s being disparaging, eh?) on a pilgrimage… ”

    I am not disparaging “space cadets” I see myself as one of them with the added bonus of experience in that field if you wish.

    “but huge numbers are also tourists who’ve come to Florida for the races in Daytona (just to the north) or for the Orlando-area parks (just to the west) or for a cruise leaving out of Port Canaveral or just because it’s frickin’ Florida, and who go to KSC because it’s part of “what you do” when you’re in that part of the world. Everytime I’ve been there, there’s been plenty of visitors who were not obviously (and in many cases, obviously not) preexisting “space cadets.””

    Okay. Your experience and perception. Not mine.

  • Lt Col Robert Hecht, USAF

    Common Sense I’ll let the numbers speak for themself. The Nat’l Museum of the Air Force gets more visitors each year than the Intrepid! Dayton is home to one of the largest most extensive air shows annually and home to the Aviation Hall of Fame which resides inside the USAF’s Museum. And considering geopgraphy I guess middle America doesn’t count huh? NYC and Washington DC are roughly 5 hours apart by car and both received a shuttle . A little unbalanced don’t you think? While I understand showcasing these modern marvels to international visitors is important, it is also important to showcase them to US citizens and our youth. The museum in Dayton has served as an inspiration to countless thousands if not millions of Americans and American children and has inspired them to reach for the skies and stars. Bottomline again right at you…the Nat’l Museum of the USAF deserved an orbiter!

  • Bill Dauphin

    Doug:

    I’m really not sure what we’re arguing about: I just wrote a whole tl;dr post to “common sense” defending (or at least intending to) the value of the very sort of non-space-cadet tourist exposure you seem to want. The only thing we seem to disagree on is the number of non-space-cadets who visit the KSC-area attractions, which I suspect is higher than either you or CS seem to think.

    Spoken like an archivist, and not a marketer.

    You say that like it’s a bad thing! More to the point, why can’t we — why shouldn’t we — be both? The Orbiters are surely great marketing tools, but they’re also priceless historical artifacts. In fact, they are arguably such valuable marketing tools because they’re priceless historical artifacts. And, as I’ve said, since we have four of them, we’re not really forced to choose one role over the other. And to the extent there is a conflict between the two roles, it’s already been won by your side (i.e., the marketing-over-history position) with the placements in NYC and CA. Which, BTW, I have been defending, even though they’re not the choices I would’ve made personally.

    So what are we fighting about again? ;^)

    I’ll agree to disagree about fans versus advocates. We have loads of space advocates right now, most of whom are concentrated in a few southern locales. … Know what? “Advocates”, as passionate and hardworking as they are, don’t seem to be doing the job.

    I begin to grok that it’s the word advocate that’s tripping us up here. I did not mean to refer to the kind of semipro, blog-reading, organization-joining Space Advocate© who’s so often angry, highly ideological, and irrevocably committed to a particular propulsion mode, launch architecture, or business model. Instead, I meant “regular” people for whom HSF has become a particular interest, and who are proud of it, and who are (and this is the part that led me to use the term advocate) willing to talk it up to their neighors over the hedge (and maybe occasionally, in general terms, to their congresspeople). Perhaps the people I’ve been calling advocates aren’t really too distinct from what you’re calling fans?

  • common sense

    @Lt Col Robert Hecht, USAF wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    “The Nat’l Museum of the Air Force gets more visitors each year than the Intrepid!”

    Possibly so BUT Dayton does not come close to compare with NYC for tourists! Come on, you MUST know that.

    “Dayton is home to one of the largest most extensive air shows annually and home to the Aviation Hall of Fame which resides inside the USAF’s Museum.”

    Which is great for aerospace fans like us, not for the public at large. We need the public at large to support human space flight, not those who de facto support it.

    “And considering geopgraphy I guess middle America doesn’t count huh?”

    I don’t remember saying anything like that, now did I? Again you are being emotional. Are you a pilot?

    “NYC and Washington DC are roughly 5 hours apart by car and both received a shuttle . A little unbalanced don’t you think?”

    Well the Smithsonian as far as I know is in DC. So not much we can do about that. Only a few will travel the distance if in either place. If you visit NYC usually you will not go to DC. Expensive enough like that to top it with an extra trip.

    “While I understand showcasing these modern marvels to international visitors is important, it is also important to showcase them to US citizens and our youth. ”

    Well, I guess US citizens do go to NYC don’t they? To DC? For far more reasons than a great aerospace museum.

    “The museum in Dayton has served as an inspiration to countless thousands if not millions of Americans and American children and has inspired them to reach for the skies and stars. Bottomline again right at you…the Nat’l Museum of the USAF deserved an orbiter!”

    Hey I can’t do anything about it. Your argument is not with me. You should argue with Bolden. But I will not support a Shuttle in Dayton if it has to come out of a more tourist destination in the US and in the world because I want to see the most possible people see those contraptions. Not the only ones on pilgrimage to Dayton.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Anyone who thinks that Houston should have gotten an orbiter should take a tour of the USS Texas (the Battleship), the two “ships” that are monuments in Galveston…or have seen the Saturn V before they got a cover over it. Houston has neither the tax base nor the institutions to take care of artifacts.

    What has happened to the Texas, truly one of a kind is just tragic. Robert G. Oler

  • Bill Dauphin

    common sense:

    I’ve mostly said what I had to say, and I still don’t understand why my fairly easygoing position torques your bolts so much. But this…

    When you have a sum of money to try and resolve many problems but far more important problems than human spaceflight then it is normal to cut somewhere.

    …assumes that social problems are generally separate and distinct, that each problem has a distinct set of solutions, and that those solutions are invariably in competition with each other. I hold that to be a fundamentally false premise: Societies and their problems are integrated and holistic, and solutions are often systematic rather than particular. This is somewhat philsophical, of course, and there’s plenty of room for philosophical disagreement… but IMHO your vision of a one-to-one map between problems and their mutually exclusive solutions is demonstrably incorrect.

    Good for you that you have the luxury to post under your own name. Any idea why some of us cannot? Do you actually work in this business?

    Of course; I didn’t mean to be snarky about your anonymity. But your anonymity does make it difficult, if not impossible, for me to know whether you’re one of the people I’ve interacted with before in fora like this one. OTOH, if you were one of those people, you’d know who I work for.

    …the advocates do not seem, to me, to support space exploration. Rather they support one rocket or another.

    Not what I’m talking about. You’re too hung up on the word advocate; see my reply to Doug.

    If you have to drive 40 mn away from Disney with your whole family to go see KSC, you are not a casual fan.

    That’s not how Florida tourism works: There are a whole cluster of attractions all within easy driving distance, and lots of people do ‘em all, just because they can. It’s different from visiting Edwards or WSMR or Mojave Spaceport. In those places, you’d be right: Anyone making the effort to get there would be more than a casual fan… but the “Space Coast” is different.

    Well, I’m’a bow out of this now, because…

    some lecturing comments

    …I can’t figure out how “I wouldn’t’a done it that way but I understand why they did” adds up to lecturing. In any case, lecturing wasn’t my intention.

    Hasta la vista, y’all….

  • Doug Lassiter

    @ Bill Dauphin wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    I’m glad to see a discussion of this, as it’s important to get away from presumptive decisions, and really think about what it is we’re trying to do.

    I accept that you’re defending NYC and CA. It’s just that your personal choice, which you say would have been different from Bolden’s, is somewhat irrelevant. I’m not making a personal choice for me. I’m just saying, and I’ll say it again, that the NASA Administrator wins more for NASA by reaching a larger number of people than by focusing on space-related tourist destinations for “priceless historical artifacts”. I’m just trying to rationalize the decision that Bolden made.

    Yes, I think that creating a historical archive is important, which is why the orbiters went to reputable museums, instead of circus tents at amusement parks. That being the case, and to the extent that Bolden is trying to spread the experience of human space flight more broadly throughout the country, it doesn’t take much to see that the population that is served by LA and NYC is larger than that served by KSC/Orlando. I think pretty nearly everyone in Central Florida has been swept off their feet by the awesome displays at KSC. Care to guess how many in New England or California have?

    Your point about the word “advocate” is a good one. Perhaps your “advocates” are indeed what I’m calling “fans”, but you mentioned how important it was to turn the latter into the former, so I suspect that’s not quite right.

    I want a nation of people who are cognizant and proud of space flight, and national space flight that is not something regional, but is part of who they are, and where they live. You don’t get that by concentrating reminders of space flight in regional tourist destinations that happen to be where the flames came out. Looking at KSC (or JSC) as “the space place” is sort of like looking at Gettysburg as “the civil war place”. Except in the case of the latter we’re happy to see it as having one location (which happened to be where the flames came out!) Again, establishment of regional tourist destinations for human space flight is what regionalizes the whole enterprise. While NASA works hard to spread contract dollars throughout the country, we have places that say — “Nope, human space flight is us. Right here. Not there.” That’s just sad, and it breeds the kind of porkification that has become the hallmark of human space flight.

    One writer above has a good point that NYC is not that far away from DC, so having two orbiters that close together may not be in the best interest of maximizing visibility. But DC represents, to the country, something very different than NYC or LA.

  • Regarding USAF museum in Dayton … A rumor making the rounds down here is that the Dayton people in their proposal wrote that they should get an orbiter because DOD paid for one. Someone did the research and found the money was never transferred.

    That’s the rumor.

    For speculation’s sake, let’s say that’s true. If their bid included a falsehood, I can understand why NASA would downgrade them. Houston got downgraded simply because they submitted a poor proposal and promoted it late.

    KSCVC put a $100 million upgrade on the table to showcase an orbiter. Did Dayton or Houston or one of the other runners-up do so? It’s not a flippant question, just an observation that the final decision involved more than “City X deserves an orbiter.” City X had to make a compelling argument that they could promote it in a way that best showcased the technology and would reach a lot of people.

  • common sense

    @ Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    “City X had to make a compelling argument that they could promote it in a way that best showcased the technology and would reach a lot of people.”

    Well that sums it up nicely.

  • common sense

    @ Bill Dauphin wrote @ April 14th, 2011 at 4:48 pm

    “Of course; I didn’t mean to be snarky about your anonymity. But your anonymity does make it difficult, if not impossible, for me to know whether you’re one of the people I’ve interacted with before in fora like this one. OTOH, if you were one of those people, you’d know who I work for.”

    No of course you did not mean to be snarky… Anywho.

    No I do not believe we’ve interacted. But I ran a little Google to find out one Bill Dauphin who is a technical writer for a major aerospace company. Would it be you? If so good for you but that does not mean you have the expertise to provide an educated judgement on one space vehicle or another now does it? Not being snarky of course.

    It is not a philosophical disagreement it is a practical disagreement. If you have a finite amount of money to deal with your problems you prioritize and HSF is down low on this list. Whether you and I philosophically agree or not.

    ;)

  • Lt Col Rob Hecht, USAF

    Common Sense wrote @ April 14th 2011 at 4:00 p.m.

    Possibly so BUT Dayton does not come close to compare with NYC for tourists! Come on, you MUST know that.

    Common Sense you are right about tourists, but folks go to NYC to see Ground Zero, Empire State, Broadway, Statue of Liberty, the Met etc., etc. They do not go for aviation and space history. I took my family there last summer and when I mentioned going to the USS Intrepid I got shot down. “We can see that stuff anytime Dad I was told.” BTW my kids have been on the USS Yorktown, to the Smithsonian, KSC and the Nat’l Museum of the USAF so I can justify their reasoning, but the Intrepid will remain at the bottom of of the list of NYC attractions visitors go to see. Placing the shuttle there just to temporarily pad their annual attendance numbers doesn’t cut it.

    And considering geopgraphy I guess middle America doesn’t count huh?”
    I don’t remember saying anything like that, now did I?

    – Your defense of the shuttle locations and NYC seems to indicate that you agree with the decision to place them there.

    Again you are being emotional. Are you a pilot?

    – No I’m an intelligence officer with a master’s in history and my certification as a history archivist (and can hopefully focus on my PhD after I complete Air War College). After my military days are done I hope to work in a museum or endeavour to teach our youth about our history.

    And I’m not emotional. I’m just a fierce advocate and member of my chosen military service…the US Air Force. I would think you would appreciate when a military member fights for his/her service especially if in the interest of their history. As I also wrote the USAF did more than any other service in support of the space shuttle to include using a respectable part of its budget to support development and operations. We (the USAF) have strong ties to the Shuttle program – more than any other military service and will support right up to the final flight!

    Hey I can’t do anything about it. Your argument is not with me. You should argue with Bolden. But I will not support a Shuttle in Dayton if it has to come out of a more tourist destination in the US and in the world because I want to see the most possible people see those contraptions. Not the only ones on pilgrimage to Dayton.

    – Once again you seem to indicate that locating an orbiter in the interior/center of America is not the proper course of action and I wholeheartedly and respectfully disagree.

  • common sense

    @ Lt Col Rob Hecht, USAF wrote @ April 15th, 2011 at 1:27 am

    I am going to try and put this to rest.

    “They do not go for aviation and space history. ”

    I do agree and this is the point. Tourist of all shapes and forms come to NYC if they happen on a Shuttle well so much the better to me. Those tourists we are trying to attract will NOT go to Dayton regardless how grand an aerospace museum they have. Of course your family has already seen all there is to see about aviation or so. Seems natural to me since you are an AF officer. See I am a pilot, not military, still I have visited places where usually no one goes unless well they are pilots or enthused with aviation. But at some point your family or mine when they grow up will either be “space cadets” or not. They will most likely go to NYC with their friends or LA for that matter.

    “Your defense of the shuttle locations and NYC seems to indicate that you agree with the decision to place them there.”

    I agree with the location but suggesting that I think “middle America”, as you put it, does not count is nonsense. I want to see the largest number of people have a peek at a Shuttle. The numbers show that most people go to NYC rather than Dayton. Period. I asked if you were a pilot because I see you being very emotional, overly so. I would expect more cold blood from a pilot, that is all. Unless you are trying to make an opportunistic issue of this (?) but I don’t believe so. Usually “fierce” is not equal to cold blood. My opinion.

    “I would think you would appreciate when a military member fights for his/her service especially if in the interest of their history.”

    I have the utmost respect for people who dedicate their lives to the defense of our nation, not even a question. Here though I think your fight is ill placed because it is not about defending the USAF history or tradition or anything. I also believe that if you are so attached to history then NYC is a great symbol of our nation more so than Dayton. I believe that having one of the greatest technological achievement of the USA supported by NASA and the USAF and others on display at NYC is a great thing. It shows to the world that our great nation cherish its achievements and put them in NYC for every one to see. NYC that has suffered an unprecedented attack deserves a little more attention than other places. You ought to be proud that such a symbol represents the USAF if you so believe in NYC. It’s yet another thumb nose at those who defy us. They cannot take away our pride. They did some damage and now we are coming back even stronger. We put even more symbols where they attacked us. See there are many ways to interpret something.

    So again, it is not whether it is proper or not to have a Shuttle in “middle America”. It is just that it is better to have it in NYC than Dayton.

  • Bill Dauphin

    Doug:

    I think we may be in what my engineer friends would call “violent agreement,” so I’ll let it drop. One small note, though: Not that it matters much, but NYC is not in New England, nor is any part of New York. New England includes Connecticut (where I live), Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

    ;^)

  • Lt Col Rob Hecht, USAF

    Common Sense,
    I am a former private pilot with a few, but not many hours. I last flew in 1996…my first child was born soon afterwards so my flying budget immediately ceased to exist. When the Air Force drew down in the early 90’s I lost my opportunity to fly…I was a navigator candidate. It was then that I decided upon an intel career. So while I may not actively fly I admire those who have taken to the skies and as a historian I endeavour to teach others of our American military, aviation and spaceflight history.

    I guess the most significant point I have to make in this case is the Air Force’s role with the Shuttle Program…a point you have ignored all along. How much has NY contributed to the Shuttle Program other than its taxpayers contribututions? I can proudly say that the USAF has contributed in countless ways…developmentally, operationally, fiscally etc.,etc,etc. We are still supporting the program! Wouldn’t it be nice to have an orbiter or Enterprise surrounded by all the research aircraft that NASA/USAF flew gathering the info that actually helped develop it. They’re all at the Nat’l Museum of the USAF. Three of the four test pilots that conducted approach and landing tests with Enterprise…you guessed it…USAF! Service with the most Shuttle Astronauts…you guessed right again…USAF! Plus Ohio can boast first American in Orbit and Man on the Moon! It just doesn’t seem “right” (not Wright, like Orville and Wilbur…a couple of other famous Ohioans) that the Jewel in the Crown of (recent) aerospace history does not reside at the Nat’l Museum of the USAF.

    This may sound bitter, but I hope it is a long, long time before Maj Gen (Ret.) Bolden is inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame…which is also located in our museum. His decision making processes were wrong and politically motivated. Maybe the USS Intrepid/NYC can honor him instead? I respect Maj Gen (Ret.) Bolden for his service, but as the NASA administrtor Mr. Bolden’s a political appointee and thus responsible for the (bad) politics behind his decisions.

    I think the defense of NYC on sheer numbers is frankly lame. NYC is a great town, but not a space or aviation town. After a while Enterprise will lose its luster and the Intrepid will resume its place as one of the lesser aerospace museums and NYC attractions. Other than its selection as a shuttle site the only headlines the Intrepid has made lately was for getting stuck in the mud.

    Only time will tell who is right on this.

    Lt Col Rob Hecht

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