Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum President Susan Marenoff-Zausner, holding Champagne, and other museum staff, react to the announcement of NASA’s space shuttle Enterprise to be retired at Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.A space shuttle is coming to Manhattan, but not one of the three that have carried astronauts into orbit.
The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is getting the fourth shuttle, the Enterprise, according to a person who had been briefed on the decision.
The Enterprise was the consolation prize in the contest to obtain one of the three orbiters that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to give away after wrapping up the Space Shuttle program. One of those three, the Discovery, has been promised to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. It would be displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, near Washington Dulles International Airport.
The Enterprise, which was the first shuttle built though it never flew into space, is currently on display there.
NASA’s administrator, Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., is scheduled to announce where the retired shuttles are going during a news conference in Florida on Tuesday afternoon.
Alex Wong/Getty Images The space shuttle Enterprise at the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar, part of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, in 2004.Intrepid museum officials have said they plan to house the shuttle in a building they will construct on Pier 86, next to the decommissioned aircraft carrier that houses the museum. They have estimated that the shuttle could draw as many as a million sightseers to the city. To make room, the museum would probably have to move a retired Concorde supersonic jet that now sits on the end of the pier, which juts into the Hudson River.
Now comes the hard part: raising the money to pay for the Enterprise. The space agency’s latest estimate of the cost of preparing and delivering one of the used shuttles was $28.8 million; the Enterprise, which is already on display, should require less work. Intrepid officials have not yet identified any sources of funds for the project and city officials have indicated to them that the city is in no position to offer much financial assistance.
New York’s two senators, Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, lobbied hard for New York City to get one of the shuttles. But they were in a fierce competition with elected officials from several other states, including Florida, Texas, Ohio and Washington.