Space shuttles head for retirement

AP

Photo

This image provided by the Adler Planetarium on Thursday, April 7, 2011 shows a proposal for a space shuttle exhibit in Chicago. As the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch draws near, the focus is not so much on the past but the future: Where will the shuttles wind up once the program winds down? (AP Photo/Adler Planetarium)

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

As the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch draws near, the focus is not so much on the past but the future: Where will the shuttles wind up once the program winds down?

Twenty-one museums and science and visitor centers around the country are vying for one of NASA’s three retiring spaceships. They’ll find out Tuesday on the 30th anniversary of Columbia’s maiden voyage.

Snagging Discovery, Atlantis or Endeavour for display doesn’t come cheap. NASA puts the tab at $28.8 million. Consider that a bargain. Early last year, NASA dropped the price from $42 million.

One space shuttle already is spoken for — the Smithsonian Institution is getting Discovery, NASA’s oldest and most traveled shuttle that ended its flying career last month. It will go to the National Air and Space Museum’s hangar in Virginia and take the place of Enterprise, the shuttle prototype used for tests in the late 1970s.

That frees up Enterprise for another museum, so there will be three other winners — a 1-in-7 chance.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr., a former shuttle commander, is making the final decision, with input from a committee. He’ll announce the winners Tuesday while marking the 30-year anniversary at Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s launch and landing site, and the front-runner in the nab-a-shuttle race.

As the big day looms, shuttle suitors are getting anxious and pulling out all the stops.

Even the prime contender, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, is jittery despite its “knock your socks off” endorsement from NASA’s shuttle launch director. The commercially run tourist site wants to suspend the shuttle over visitors, with the payload bay doors wide open as if in orbit and the robot arm outstretched.

Some of the other hot contenders: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio; Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City; Museum of Flight in Seattle; and Adler Planetarium in Chicago.