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December 30, 2025<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s New Chief Just Put a Fresh Twist on the Texas Space Shuttle Saga<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s new boss Jared Isaacman hinted that he could break with Texas lawmakers\u2019 push to move iconic space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Houston<\/p>\n By Claire Cameron edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier<\/span><\/p>\n Space shuttle Discovery rolls into its hangar for display at the Smithsonian in 2012.<\/p>\n Dane Penland\/Smithsonian\u2019s National Air and Space Museum<\/p>\n The great Texas space shuttle saga has taken a new twist: Jared Isaacman, President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to lead NASA, indicated that the space shuttle Discovery may not move from its retirement home in a Smithsonian museum to Houston after all despite a Texas lawmaker push over the past year to make it happen.<\/p>\n The effort to shift Discovery from its hangar in Chantilly, Va., an annex of the Smithsonian\u2019s National Air and Space Museum, was previously described as a \u201cheist\u201d by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois in July\u2014that same month, the move was enshrined into law by the Trump administration\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which provided $85 million to transfer the shuttle to the Space Center Houston museum within 18 months. Yet in a recent interview with CNBC, Isaacman said that whether the spacecraft can be moved remained to be seen.<\/p>\n \u201cMy job now is to make sure that we can undertake such a transportation within the budget dollars that we have available and, of course, most importantly, ensuring the safety of the vehicle,\u201d Isaacman said. NASA and the Smithsonian have estimated that moving Discovery would cost at least $120 million.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n If it turns out not to be possible, he added, then NASA could ultimately move a different vehicle to Houston. \u201cWe\u2019ve got spacecraft that are going around the moon with Artemis II, III, IV and V. One way or another, we\u2019re going to make sure that Johnson Space Center gets their historic spacecraft,\u201d Isaacman said.<\/p>\n Space scientists and legal experts previously decried Discovery\u2019s move in interviews with Scientific American as a \u201ctheft\u201d and \u201ca vanity project.\u201d Others expressed concern that the Texas museum would not be able to properly house and maintain the spacecraft.<\/p>\n Amanda Monta\u00f1ez; Source: NASA Office of Inspector General (data)<\/p>\n \u201cSuch a move would be a waste of money\u2014a vanity project that is apt to destroy a near-priceless American treasure,\u201d Matthew Hersch, a fellow in legal history at New York University School of Law and an associate of the Harvard University Department of the History of Science, told Scientific American.<\/p>\n \u201cThe removal of Discovery from the Smithsonian Institution would be a theft, by the federal government, of a $2-billion artifact from a private museum that owns it and has been maintaining it properly for over a decade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Discovery was first launched in 1984, completing 39 missions to space\u2014more than any of the four other space shuttles NASA built that went to space\u2014including a mission to loft the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit in 1990.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" December 30, 2025 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm NASA\u2019s New Chief Just Put a Fresh Twist on the Texas Space Shuttle Saga NASA\u2019s new boss Jared Isaacman hinted that he could break with Texas lawmakers\u2019 push to move iconic space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Houston By Claire Cameron edited by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[689,834,8319,2388,1883,16549,1101,1010],"class_list":{"0":"post-39639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-chief","9":"tag-hints","10":"tag-iconic","11":"tag-moving","12":"tag-nasas","13":"tag-shuttle","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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