Does anyone want Shuttle Discovery?

Smithsonian Air And Space Museum wants it, but can it afford it?:
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-110110b.html

Pat

In sci.space.history Damon Hill wrote:
Huh. They've had Enterprise for years and years! Mostly hidden
away in a storage hanger.

That was rectified:

http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarh...ce_opening.cfm

rick jones
--
Wisdom Teeth are impacted, people are affected by the effects of events.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Pat Flannery wrote in
dakotatelephone:

Smithsonian Air And Space Museum wants it, but can it afford it?:
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-110110b.html

Pat


Huh. They've had Enterprise for years and years! Mostly hidden
away in a storage hanger.

Give Discovery to the aerospace museum in Seattle. We'll give her a
place of honor.

--Damon

On Nov 2, 1:30*pm, Damon Hill wrote:

Huh. *They've had Enterprise for years and years! *Mostly hidden
away in a storage hanger.

Open to the public since 2003.

Give Discovery to the aerospace museum in Seattle. *We'll give her a
place of honor.

The people I've talked to here in DC thought Seattle was the most
likely to get an OV of all the non-government museums, but they were
not thrilled with the idea of a non-government museum getting a
orbiter (no decisions seem to have been made). The basic problem is
that they are forever. Once the SCA retires, there will be essentially
no way to move them around, so they need to be at a museum that will
be able to take good care of them 100 years from now (yes, this is the
timeline that NASA and NASM are using). There is simply no guarantee
that Boeing and Microsoft will still be raining dollars on the Museum
of Flight seven decades from now.

Look at the plight of the USS Olympia as an example of what can happen
to private museums saddled with old, expensive to maintain, priceless
artifacts. NASA and NASM have an obligation to try and prevent that,
which is why the general expectation is that public museums are going
to win. And that makes budget issues something of a shell game.
Whether NASM or NASA (at least one SFC is probably going to get one)
or the USAF (NMUSAF is probably going to get one) pays for it, it will
pretty much have to come from Congress, so whomever gets the money to
pay for it, it will be paid for.

Chris Manteuffel

On 11/2/2010 9:01 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
In sci.space.history Damon wrote:
Huh. They've had Enterprise for years and years! Mostly hidden
away in a storage hanger.

That was rectified:

http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarh...ce_opening.cfm

If they replace Enterprise with Discovery over there, then what to do
with Enterprise? I imagine it should be at Edwards where it did its
glide tests, but that's more moving expense still.
What would be interesting to do to Enterprise is remove the skin off
half of it, so that visitors could examine the interior structure.
A cutaway Spacelab in the cargo bay would be a nice touch also.
You would have to get some surplus engines to put back into it, but NASA
wasn't having much luck even trying to give those away to museums for
shipping costs (a cutaway SSME would be very interesting to look at due
to its internal complexity).

Pat

In article
,
Chris wrote:

Look at the plight of the USS Olympia as an example of what can happen
to private museums saddled with old, expensive to maintain, priceless
artifacts.

You made me look up the ship on Wiki. Damn... I've been on her twice,
once as a kid and again a couple years ago when I was in Philadelphia
for the sci fi Worldcon, and the idea of the Olympia being sold for
scrap... I wonder if there's any way to get her to Buffalo's Naval
Park.

--
Chris Mack "If we show any weakness, the monsters will get cocky!"
'Invid Fan' - 'Yokai Monsters Along With Ghosts'

On 11/2/2010 2:07 PM, Chris wrote:

The people I've talked to here in DC thought Seattle was the most
likely to get an OV of all the non-government museums, but they were
not thrilled with the idea of a non-government museum getting a
orbiter (no decisions seem to have been made). The basic problem is
that they are forever. Once the SCA retires, there will be essentially
no way to move them around, so they need to be at a museum that will
be able to take good care of them 100 years from now (yes, this is the
timeline that NASA and NASM are using). There is simply no guarantee
that Boeing and Microsoft will still be raining dollars on the Museum
of Flight seven decades from now.

The thing is, we only need keep _one_ intact and in good repair for
historical purposes, not all three surviving orbiters and Enterprise.
Note that we didn't keep the first fully streamlined nuclear attack
submarine (SSN-585 Skipjack) or our first Polaris missile sub (SSBN-598
George Washington) fully intact at all, even though they were both very
historically significant; both were scrapped, except for George
Washington's sail.
The British unceremoniously scrapped one of the most historically
significant warships of all time - HMS Dreadnought.

Look at the plight of the USS Olympia as an example of what can happen
to private museums saddled with old, expensive to maintain, priceless
artifacts.

You think that's bad, look what happened to USS Oregon; Oregon gave it
back for service in the US Navy during WWI as a patriotic gesture, and
at the conclusion of the war the Navy said it was theirs to do whatever
they wanted to with it, and instead of returning it to Oregon, scrapped it.
They could save a lot of expense on upkeep of Olympia if they followed
the lead of what the Japanese did with the flagship of the imperial
fleet at the battle of the Tsushima Straits in 1905; they set the
battleship IJN Mikasa in concrete up to the waterline, thereby
eliminating the need to keep her hull watertight:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNJA...kasa_1_pic.jpg

Pat

On 11/2/2010 3:44 PM, Invid Fan wrote:
In article
,
wrote:

Look at the plight of the USS Olympia as an example of what can happen
to private museums saddled with old, expensive to maintain, priceless
artifacts.

You made me look up the ship on Wiki. Damn... I've been on her twice,
once as a kid and again a couple years ago when I was in Philadelphia
for the sci fi Worldcon, and the idea of the Olympia being sold for
scrap... I wonder if there's any way to get her to Buffalo's Naval Park.

The place she should go is Washington state; I assume she's named after
Olympia, Washington.
The old Revell model of the ship is a real ball to build BTW, with
really good parts fit, and a surprising degree of detail for a model of
that vintage.
http://modelshipworld.com/phpBB2/fil...lympia_296.jpg
I don't know if it's still the case, but Olympia's officer's wardroom
used to be the official headquarters for the Navy "Blue Angels"
aerobatic team.

Pat

In article
tatelephone, Pat
Flannery wrote:

On 11/2/2010 3:44 PM, Invid Fan wrote:
In article
,
wrote:

Look at the plight of the USS Olympia as an example of what can happen
to private museums saddled with old, expensive to maintain, priceless
artifacts.

You made me look up the ship on Wiki. Damn... I've been on her twice,
once as a kid and again a couple years ago when I was in Philadelphia
for the sci fi Worldcon, and the idea of the Olympia being sold for
scrap... I wonder if there's any way to get her to Buffalo's Naval Park.

The place she should go is Washington state; I assume she's named after
Olympia, Washington.

Sure, but construction started under Buffalo's Grover Cleveland and we
killed McKinley, so there's a connection there too Hell, maybe fresh
water would be better for her as well.

--
Chris Mack "If we show any weakness, the monsters will get cocky!"
'Invid Fan' - 'Yokai Monsters Along With Ghosts'

On 11/3/2010 8:29 AM, Invid Fan wrote:


Sure, but construction started under Buffalo's Grover Cleveland and we
killed McKinley, so there's a connection there too Hell, maybe fresh
water would be better for her as well.

She'd ride deeper in fresh water than in salt water due to the lower
density, but at least you wouldn't have to worry about barnacles all
over the bottom. ;-) I still think the concrete idea is best, as that
solves all the hull deterioration problems permanently, and makes access
to the ship easy also.
For a really strange way to display a naval vessel, check out the
experimental sub Albacore that had our first teardrop hull shape:
http://ussalbacore.org/html/albacore_park.html
Odd little bit of Trivia regarding HMS Dreadnought BTW; she was assigned
to second line service in WWI, and managed to unintentionally revenge
the sinking of the cruisers Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue when she rammed
and sank the U-29, captained by Otto Weddigen - who had commanded U-9
when she sank those three warships on September 22, 1914.

Pat