When cash crunch meets government space agencies it looks like this, from the Times:
Nasa is seeking new homes for its three ageing space shuttle orbiters after they are decommissioned in 2010…
The cash-strapped space agency has written to museums, educational institutions and what it terms other appropriate organisations, inviting them to snap up a piece of history as it prepares to retire the shuttle fleet and make way for a new manned spaceflight programme: Constellation.
The asking price, which applies to each vehicle, covers the cost of making the orbiters safe for public display, including decontaminating toxic fuel systems, and transporting them to their final destination.
That asking price being, for those in the market, a cool $42m, including an astronomical (ahem) shipping charge of $6m.
But there are a few caveats for potential buyers — for a start, you have to be a US citizen. You also have to promise to keep the shuttles in a climate-controlled display area, and, most dissappointingly, they do not come with their engines. Those are being sold seperately at $800,000 each.
Oh, and the sale is off should newly-elected President Obama decide to scrap Bush’s plans retire the shuttles and build new ones for another trip to the moon by 2020.
For our part, we can’t wait to see what other things government agencies start selling off amid tighter budgets. Nuclear silos? Submarines? F-15s?
Related links:
Tough decision looms on space shuttle’s fate – WSJ
‘Second-hand spaceship, $36m’ – Times Online