[Futureguy]

So the Shuttle Atlantis has finished her "last" mission, but is going to be fitted out as a rescue vehicle for the last (two) planned flights. What are the possibilities that the ship could, though not necessarily actually be used unmanned to deliver one last cargo to the ISS and leave her (docked) there as another crew quarters? Or a one-time rescue (return) ship after some mods? Shame to let them rust away from glory sitting in some museum, let her and (the other shuttles) go up and permanently grace the sky they were made to fly in. They could give the station three more good cargo runs even without a crew. Also barring the possibility they could become a navigation hazard!

Thinking out loud.

[MagaditH]

None. Atlantis is going to a museum. Which one is unknown, but that is what Nasa said. All the shuttles are going to a museum somewhere. Discovery is going to the Smithsonian while the Enterprise is shipped elsewhere.

[starbase63]

Originally Posted by MagaditH

None. Atlantis is going to a museum. Which one is unknown, but that is what Nasa said. All the shuttles are going to a museum somewhere. Discovery is going to the Smithsonian while the Enterprise is shipped elsewhere.

The Enterprise has been on display at the James McDonnel Space Hangar at Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum since 2004, MagaditH.

[MagaditH]

Originally Posted by starbase63

The Enterprise has been on display at the James McDonnel Space Hangar at Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum since 2004, MagaditH.

Posted today
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...Nw8ZF25hJNwmCA

The National Air and Space Museum plans to have Discovery replace the shuttle Enterprise at its Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center close to Dulles International Airport, Neal said. Its main building in central Washington is too small to house the giant spacecraft.
It will return Enterprise, the oldest shuttle of all, to NASA, which will transfer it to another museum.

[kevin]

Why not just put one in the East Coast, one in the West Coast and then one somewhere in the middle of the country so that they are evenly spread for people to see them.

[NCC-73515]

I'd like to have the Discovery in Munich ;D

[radoskal]

Aww man..I wonder where they are moving the Enterprise to

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I know the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space museum in New York is interested in getting their hands on one of the shuttles.

[Ensign James T. Kirk]

I guess Discovery was more than a match for poor Enterprise.

[starbase63]

Thanks, Mag, I sit corrected!!

I just hope the Enterprise goes to a good home...send it back to KSC, or the Huntsville Space and Missile Center in Alabama...

If she goes to the Intrepid museum, that would be great, I could go down to see her, but somehow I don't think they'd store her indoors. They don't even have the Concorde that's there protected from the elements.

Would hate to see her end up like one of the Soviet Buran shuttles that's wasting away on a dock in Bahrain...or the one that still sits in the hangar that collapsed on it years ago at Baikonour, a pile of junk.

2002, before the roof collapsed:



and a more recent picture, after the destruction: