The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Mu seum on Manhattan’s West Side re mains in the running to become permanent home to one of three retired NASA space shuttles when the program is officially shuttered next year.
But this month’s elections lengthened the odds.
The House Science Committee oversees NASA — and its incoming chairman, Ralph Hall (R-Texas), has made no bones about where he’d like shuttles Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis located: “East Texas, West Texas, Northeast Texas and even the 4th District of Texas, even the Panhandle, would make excellent homes for the orbiter fleet.”
That’s not welcome news to the 20 cultural institutions — including the Intrepid — that are trying to land one of the retired shuttles.
In addition to Texas, Florida is New York’s chief competitor, given its status as home to the Kennedy Space Center.
But, as New York’s Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ensured in language inserted into NASA’s funding bill last year, the final location for a shuttle need only have some historical connection to the US space program, and Intrepid qualifies.
The aircraft carrier played a key role during the early days of manned space flights as she retrieved astronauts from capsules splashed down in the Pacific.
Parochial interests aside, NASA has said that it would like the shuttles to be on display where they can be seen by the greatest number of people.
If that doesn’t speak to New York and Intrepid, what does?
The Big Apple is, already, the greatest tourist magnet in the country — if not the world.
Intrepid herself attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Adding a space shuttle as an attraction could boost that number considerably.
Let’s hope NASA recognizes where it will get the most bang for its buck — right here in Manhattan.