gizmodo.com: Texas Senators have launched an all-out crusade to break Space Shuttle Discovery into pieces and move it to their state. This iconic spacecraft has been on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, and the institution isn’t giving it up without a fight.
5 comments:
Okay I am genuinely so over the stupid and petty things happening in this country. Having the shuttle in DC at the Smithsonian makes sense. The Smithsonian Institute are the leading experts in museum curation and the location of the shuttle in DC as the capital makes it a prime location. You know what I want Texas politicians to focus on? The approximately 3.5 million Texans who are losing access to SNAP tomorrow. As of tomorrow people will begin to starve and you care about a stupid shuttle? Genuinely get a grip. Let's be honest here, this is just another ploy by Republican politicians to distract from greater issues. This is also a chance to further discredit the Smithsonian Institute by the republican political movement. This comment on the article says it best, “if they move Discovery it'll be destroyed and be another poignant metaphor for this current era of American history: destruction”.
Ok what on earth, or rather, off earth, is going on? Are we seriously at the point where states are fighting our national institutions over a space shuttle? I understand in principle why Texas would want the shuttle moved to Houston, but there’s already so much space history at Johnson Space Center (I think they have at least an Apollo capsule there?) so there’s not really a good reason to move shuttle Discovery. Furthermore, it doesn’t make sense to move a ship that was once America’s national symbol of space exploration for over 30 years from its place in the nation’s capital. And all of this doesn’t even factor in the fact that the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft are retired and couldn’t be brought back online in a reasonable timeframe or budget range, requiring the shuttle to be sliced apart to move it. It’s all just so absurd and problematic, and yet it’s on the table because of our current government chaos.
This whole ordeal just seems petty to me. From my quick research into the background of the Discovery, it does not seem like it was ever in Texas, yet they say they want to “bring it home”. To do so would mean completely dismantling the shuttle which could likely destroy it either fully or partially. The fact that this was originally part of the Big Beautiful Bill also just makes no sense to me. We are watching politicians decide what they want to do based on how much it will show off their power and see how much they can do without pushback. They are pushing the limits to see what people are paying attention to and are using these petty ideas to distract from other horrible things that are happening. There are so many more important things that they should be doing/paying attention to. The American people are suffering, but sure, let's put our efforts into fighting for a shuttle to be relocated when it is perfectly fine where it is and is doing a lot educating where it already is.
This was an interesting article, and as a Texan I feel like I have some unique input on this topic. Us Texans take extreme pride in our culture. I absolutely love Houston, where I was born and raised, however I would not recommend many people to take a vacation there. It is an incredible city, but it doesn't have many exciting things to do. We do however have NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. This is an incredible compound that includes NASA’s mission control. They also have some really fun educational programs and tours that I loved doing as a kid. Anyways, we take immense pride in this and even go by the nickname of the “Space City”. This state has space exploration woven into it. In rural Texas, Space X does lots of their launches and testing. When I used to go to summer camp, we could actually feel and hear many of these tests. I do think that it would be awesome to add a real space shuttle to the museum of the Johnson Space Center, in the city where so many of its residents helped to contribute to its success. However, despite all of that I think that the risk of the shuttle being torn apart in the travel process outweighs the benefits of it being in Texas.
I hate to see such an important piece of our history tied up in politics like this. Discovery was built by NASA using tax dollars from across the nation. It should be placed somewhere where the entire nation can view it and the Smithsonian is the best institution for that. And moreover if NASA says that moving it would have undue risk of damaging it I’m more inclined to believe the people who’ve studied their entire lives to understand the forces at play than any private company that doesn’t specialize in aeronautics. I don’t understand how congress could be willing to risk an artifact so important to our national heritage to appease Texas. Texas contributed greatly to the space shuttle program but at the end of the day it was the collective effort of people across the country and Discovery’s resting place should reflect that. It feels more and more like politicians are simply seeing how much they can get away with before the American people call them out for crossing the line before quietly pushing the line a bit further.
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