(Oddly, Cornyn and Weber’s letter to Roberts described the law as requiring Duffy “to transfer a space vehicle involved in the Commercial Crew Program” rather than choosing a destination NASA center related to the same, as the bill actually reads. Taken as written, if that was indeed their intent, Discovery and the other retired shuttles would be exempt, as the winged orbiters were never part of that program. A request for clarification sent to both Congress members’ offices was not immediately answered.)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX, at right) sits in front of a model of Space Shuttle Discovery at Space Center Houston, where they want to move the real orbiter. Credit: collectSPACE.com
In the letter, Cornyn and Weber cited the Anti-Lobbying Act as restricting the use of funds provided by the federal government to “influence members of the public to pressure Congress regarding legislation or appropriations matters.”
“As the Smithsonian Institution receives annual appropriations from Congress, it is subject to the restrictions imposed by this statute,” they wrote.
The money that Congress allocates to the Smithsonian accounts for about two-thirds of the Institution’s annual budget, primarily covering federal staff salaries, collections care, facilities maintenance, and the construction and revitalization of the buildings that house the Smithsonian’s 21 museums and other centers.
Pols want Smithsonian to stay mum
As evidence of the Smithsonian’s alleged wrongdoing, Cornyn and Weber cited a July 11 article by Zach Vasile for Flying Magazine, which ran under the headline “Smithsonian Pushing Back on Plans to Relocate Space Shuttle.” Vasile quoted from a message the Institution sent to Congress saying that there was no precedent for removing an object from its collection to send it elsewhere.
The Texas officials wrote that the anti-lobbying restrictions apply to “staff time or public relations resources” and claimed that the Smithsonian’s actions did not fall under the law’s exemptions, including “public speeches, incidental expenditures for public education or communications, or activities unrelated to legislation or appropriations.”
Cornyn and Weber urged Roberts, as the head of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, to “conduct a comprehensive internal review” as it applied to how the institution responded to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“Should the review reveal that appropriated funds were used in a manner inconsistent with the prohibitions outlined in the Anti-Lobbying Act, we respectfully request that immediate and appropriate corrective measures be implemented to ensure the Institution’s full compliance with all applicable statutory and ethical obligations,” Cornyn and Weber wrote.
“The acting administrator has made an identification.”
Don’t say Discovery: Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy has decided to send a retired space shuttle to Houston, but won’t say which one. Credit: Smithsonian/collectSPACE.com
Don’t say Discovery: Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy has decided to send a retired space shuttle to Houston, but won’t say which one. Credit: Smithsonian/collectSPACE.com
The head of NASA has decided to move one of the agency’s retired space shuttles to Houston, but which one seems to still be up in the air.
Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), who earlier this year introduced and championed an effort to relocate the space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston, issued a statement on Tuesday evening (August 5) applauding the decision by acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy.
“There is no better place for one of NASA’s space shuttles to be displayed than Space City,” said Cornyn in the statement. “Since the inception of our nation’s human space exploration program, Houston has been at the center of our most historic achievements, from training the best and brightest to voyage into the great unknown to putting the first man on the moon.”
Keeping the shuttle a secret, for some reason
The senator did not state which of NASA’s winged orbiters would be making the move. The legislation that required Duffy to choose a “space vehicle” that had “flown in space” and “carried people” did not specify an orbiter by name, but the language in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law last month was inspired by Cornyn and fellow Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s bill to relocate Discovery.
“The acting administrator has made an identification. We have no further public statement at this time,” said a spokesperson for Duffy in response to an inquiry.
NASA’s acting administrator, Sean Duffy, identified a retired NASA space shuttle to be moved to “a non-profit near the Johnson Space Center” in Houston, Texas, on Aug. 5, 2025. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
It is not clear why the choice of orbiters is being held a secret. According to the bill, the decision was to be made “with the concurrence of an entity designated” by the NASA administrator to display the shuttle. Cornyn’s release only confirmed that Duffy had identified the location to be “a non-profit near the Johnson Space Center (JSC).”
Space Center Houston is owned by the Manned Space Flight Education Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization, and is the official visitor’s center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
“We continue to work on the basis that the shuttle identified is Discovery and proceed with our preparations for its arrival and providing it a world-class home,” Keesha Bullock, interim COO and chief communications and marketing officer at Space Center Houston, said in a statement.
Orbiter owners
Another possible reason for the hesitation to name an orbiter may be NASA’s ability, or rather inability, to identify one of its three remaining space-flown shuttles that is available to be moved.
NASA transferred the title for space shuttle Endeavour to the California Science Center in Los Angeles in 2012, and as such it is no longer US government property. (The science center is a public-private partnership between the state of California and the California Science Center Foundation.)
NASA still owns space shuttle Atlantis and displays it at its own Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
Discovery, the fleet leader and “vehicle of record,” was the focus of Cornyn and Cruz’s original “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act.” The senators said they chose Discovery because it was “the only shuttle still owned by the federal government and able to be transferred to Houston.”
For the past 13 years, Discovery has been on public display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, the annex for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. As with Endeavour, NASA signed over title upon the orbiter’s arrival at its new home.
As such, Smithsonian officials are clear: Discovery is no longer NASA’s to have or to move.
“The Smithsonian Institution owns the Discovery and holds it in trust for the American public,” read a statement from the National Air and Space Museum issued before Duffy made his decision. “In 2012, NASA transferred ‘all rights, title, interest and ownership’ of the shuttle to the Smithsonian.”
The Smithsonian operates as a trust instrumentality of the United States and is partially funded by Congress, but it is not part of any of the three branches of the federal government.
“The Smithsonian is treated as a federal agency for lots of things to do with federal regulations and state action, but that’s very different than being an agency of the executive branch, which it most certainly is not,” Nick O’Donnell, an attorney who specializes in legal issues in the museum and visual arts communities and co-chairs the Art, Cultural Property, and Heritage Law Committee of the International Bar Association, said in an interview.
The Smithsonian has displayed the space shuttle Discovery at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, since April 2012. Credit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
“If there’s a document that accompanied the transfer of the space shuttle, especially if it says something like, ‘all rights, title, and interest,’ that’s a property transfer, and that’s it,” O’Donnell said.
“NASA has decided to transfer all rights, interest, title, and ownership of Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum,” reads the signed transfer of ownership for space shuttle orbiter Discovery (OV-103), according to a copy of the paperwork obtained by collectSPACE.
The Congressional Research Service also raised the issue of ownership in its paper, “Transfer of a Space Vehicle: Issues for Congress.”
“The ability of the NASA Administrator to direct transfer of objects owned by non-NASA entities—including the Smithsonian and private organizations—is unclear and may be subject to question. This may, in turn, limit the range of space vehicles that may be eligible for transfer under this provision.”
Defending Discovery
The National Air and Space Museum also raised concerns about the safety of relocating the space shuttle now. The One Big Beautiful Bill allocated $85 million to transport the orbiter and construct a facility to display it. The Smithsonian contends it could be much more costly.
“Removing Discovery from the Udvar-Hazy Center and transporting it to another location would be very complicated and expensive, and likely result in irreparable damage to the shuttle and its components,” the museum’s staff said in a statement. “The orbiter is a fragile object and must be handled according to the standards and equipment NASA used to move it originally, which exceeds typical museum transport protocols.”
“Given its age and condition, Discovery is at even greater risk today. The Smithsonian employs world-class preservation and conservation methods, and maintaining Discovery‘s current conditions is critical to its long-term future,” the museum’s statement concluded.
The law directs NASA to transfer the space shuttle (the identified space vehicle) to Space Center Houston (the entity designated by the NASA administrator) within 18 months of the bill’s enactment, or January 4, 2027.
In the interim, an amendment to block funding the move is awaiting a vote by the full House of Representatives when its members return from summer recess in September.
“The forced removal and relocation of the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum is inappropriate, wasteful, and wrong. Neither the Smithsonian nor American taxpayers should be forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this misguided effort,” said Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY), who introduced the amendment.
A grassroots campaign, KeepTheShutle.org, has also raised objection to removing Discovery from the Smithsonian.
Perhaps the best thing the Smithsonian can do—if indeed it is NASA’s intention to take Discovery—is nothing at all, says O’Donnell.
“I would say the Smithsonian’s recourse is to keep the shuttle exactly where it is. It’s the federal government that has no recourse to take it,” O’Donnell said. “The space shuttle [Discovery] is the Smithsonian’s, and any law that suggests the intention to take it violates the Fifth Amendment on its face—the government cannot take private property.”
Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE, a daily news publication and online community focused on where space exploration intersects with pop culture. He is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of “Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018. He is on the leadership board for For All Moonkind and is a member of the American Astronautical Society’s history committee.
United Launch Alliance begins stacking its third Vulcan rocket for the second time.
Visitors walk by models of a Long March 10 rocket, lunar lander, and crew spacecraft during an exhibition on February 24, 2023 in Beijing, China. Credit: Hou Yu/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images
Welcome to Edition 8.02 of the Rocket Report! It’s worth taking a moment to recognize an important anniversary in the history of human spaceflight next week. Fifty years ago, on July 15, 1975, NASA launched a three-man crew on an Apollo spacecraft from Florida and two Russian cosmonauts took off from Kazakhstan, on course to link up in low-Earth orbit two days later. This was the first joint US-Russian human spaceflight mission, laying the foundation for a strained but enduring partnership on the International Space Station. Operations on the ISS are due to wind down in 2030, and the two nations have no serious prospects to continue any partnership in space after decommissioning the station.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Sizing up Europe’s launch challengers. The European Space Agency has selected five launch startups to become eligible for up to 169 million euros ($198 million) in funding to develop alternatives to Arianespace, the continent’s incumbent launch service provider, Ars reports. The five small launch companies ESA selected are Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space, and Orbex. Only one of these companies, Isar Aerospace, has attempted to launch a rocket into orbit. Isar’s Spectrum rocket failed moments after liftoff from Norway on a test flight in March. None of these companies is guaranteed an ESA contract or funding. Over the next several months, ESA and the five launch companies will negotiate with European governments for funding leading up to ESA’s ministerial council meeting in November, when ESA member states will set the agency’s budget for at least the next two years. Only then will ESA be ready to sign binding agreements.
Let’s rank ’em … Ars Technica’s space reporters ranked the five selectees for the European Launcher Challenge in order from most likely to least likely to reach orbit. We put Munich-based Isar Aerospace, the most well-funded of the group, at the top of the list after attempting its first orbital launch earlier this year. Paris-based MaiaSpace, backed by ArianeGroup, comes in second, with plans for a partially reusable rocket. Rocket Factory Augsburg, another German company, is in third place after getting close to a launch attempt last year before its first rocket blew up on a test stand. Spanish startup PLD Space is fourth, and Britain’s Orbex rounds out the list. (submitted by EllPeaTea)
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Japan’s Interstellar Technologies rakes in more cash. Interstellar Technologies raised 8.9 billion yen ($61.8 million) to boost the development of its Zero rocket and research and development of satellite systems, Space News reports. The money comes from Japanese financial institutions, venture capital funds, and debt financing. Interstellar previously received funding through agreements with the Japanese government and Toyota, which Interstellar says will add expertise to scale manufacturing of the Zero rocket for “high-frequency, cost-effective launches.” The methane-fueled Zero rocket is designed to deploy a payload of up to 1 metric ton (2,200 pounds) into low-Earth orbit. The unfortunate news from Interstellar’s fundraising announcement is that the company has pushed back the debut flight of the Zero rocket until 2027.
Straight up … Interstellar has aspirations beyond launch vehicles. The company is also developing a satellite communications business, and some of the money raised in the latest investment round will go toward this segment of the company. Interstellar is open about comparing its ambition to that of SpaceX. “On the satellite side, Interstellar is developing communications satellites that benefit from the company’s own launch capabilities,” the company said in a statement. “Backed by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and JAXA’s Space Strategy Fund, the company is building a vertically integrated model, similar to SpaceX’s approach with Starlink.”
Korean startup completes second-stage qual testing. South Korean launch services company Innospace says it has taken another step toward the inaugural launch of its Hanbit-Nano rocket by the year’s end with the qualification of the second stage, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The second stage uses an in-house-developed 34-kilonewton (7,643-pound-thrust) liquid methane engine. Innospace says the engine achieved a combustion time of 300 seconds, maintaining stability of the fuel and oxidizer supply system, structural integrity, and the launch vehicle integrated control system.
A true micro-launcher … Innospace’s rocket is modest in size and capacity, even among its cohorts in the small launch market. The Hanbit-Nano rocket is designed to launch approximately 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of payload into Sun-synchronous orbit. “With the success of this second stage engine certification test, we have completed the development of the upper stage of the Hanbit-Nano launch vehicle,” said Kim Soo-jong, CEO of Innospace. “This is a very symbolic and meaningful technological achievement that demonstrates the technological prowess and test operation capabilities that Innospace has accumulated over a long period of time, while also showing that we have entered the final stage for commercial launch. Currently, all executives and staff are doing their best to successfully complete the first stage certification test, which is the final gateway for launch, and we will make every effort to prepare for a smooth commercial launch in the second half of the year.”
Two companies forge unlikely alliance in Dubai. Two German entrepreneurs have joined forces with a team of Russian expats steeped in space history to design a rocket using computational AI models, Payload reports. The “strategic partnership” is between LEAP 71, an AI-enabled design startup, and Aspire Space, a company founded by the son of a Soviet engineer who was in charge of launching Zenit rockets from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in the 1980s. The companies will base their operations in Dubai. The unlikely pairing aims to develop a new large reusable launch vehicle capable of delivering up to 15 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. Aspire Space is a particularly interesting company if you’re a space history enthusiast. Apart from the connections of Aspire’s founder to Soviet space history, Aspire’s chief technology officer, Sergey Sopov, started his career at Baikonur working on the Energia heavy-lift rocket and Buran space shuttle, before becoming an executive at Sea Launch later in his career.
Trust the computer … It’s easy to be skeptical about this project, but it has attracted an interesting group of people. LEAP 71 has just two employees—its two German co-founders—but boasts lofty ambitions and calls itself a “pioneer in AI-driven engineering.” As part of the agreement with Aspire Space, LEAP 71 will use a proprietary software program called Noyron to design the entire propulsion stack for Aspire’s rockets. The company says its AI-enabled design approach for Aspire’s 450,000-pound-thrust engine will cut in half the time it took other rocket companies to begin test-firing a new engine of similar size. Rudenko forecasts Aspire’s entire project, including a launcher, reusable spacecraft, and ground infrastructure to support it all, will cost more than $1 billion. So far, the project is self-funded, Rudenko told Payload. (submitted by Lin Kayser)
Russia launches ISS resupply freighter. A Russian Progress supply ship launched July 3 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket, NASASpaceflight reports. Packed with 5,787 pounds (2,625 kilograms) of cargo and fuel, the Progress MS-31 spacecraft glided to an automated docking at the International Space Station two days later. The Russian cosmonauts living aboard the ISS will unpack the supplies carried inside the Progress craft’s pressurized compartment. This was the eighth orbital launch of the year by a Russian rocket, continuing a downward trend in launch activity for the Russian space program in recent years.
Celebrating a golden anniversary … The Soyuz rocket that launched Progress MS-31 was painted an unusual blue and white scheme, as it was originally intended for a commercial launch that was likely canceled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also sported a logo commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission in July 1975.
Chinese rocket moves closer to first launch. Chinese commercial launch firm Orienspace is aiming for a late 2025 debut of its Gravity-2 rocket following a recent first-stage engine hot fire test, Space News reports. The “three-in-one” hot fire test verified the performance of the Gravity-2 rocket’s first stage engine, servo mechanisms, and valves that regulate the flow of propellants into the engine, according to a press release from Orienspace. The Gravity-2 rocket’s recoverable and reusable first stage will be powered by nine of these kerosene-fueled engines. The recent hot fire test “lays a solid foundation” for future tests leading up to the Gravity-2’s inaugural flight.
Extra medium … Orienspace’s first rocket, the solid-fueled Gravity-1, completed its first successful flight last year to place multiple small satellites into orbit. Gravity-2 is a much larger vehicle, standing 230 feet (70 meters) tall, the same height as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Orienspace’s new rocket will fly in a core-only configuration or with the assistance of two solid rocket boosters. An infographic released by Orienspace in conjunction with the recent engine hot fire test indicates the Gravity-2 rocket will be capable of hauling up to 21.5 metric tons (47,400 pounds) of cargo into low-Earth orbit, placing its performance near the upper limit of medium-lift launchers.
Senator calls out Texas for trying to steal space shuttle. A political effort to remove space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian and place it on display in Texas encountered some pushback on Thursday, as a US senator questioned the expense of carrying out what he described as a theft, Ars reports. “This is not a transfer. It’s a heist,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) during a budget markup hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee. “A heist by Texas because they lost a competition 12 years ago.” In April, Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both representing Texas, introduced the “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act” that called for Discovery to be relocated from the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in northern Virginia and displayed at Space Center Houston. They then inserted an $85 million provision for the shuttle relocation into the Senate version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which, to comply with Senate rules, was more vaguely worded but was meant to achieve the same goal. That bill was enacted on July 4, when President Donald Trump signed it into law.
Dollar signs … As ridiculous as it is to imagine spending $85 million on moving a space shuttle from one museum to another, it’ll actually cost a lot more to do it safely. Citing research by NASA and the Smithsonian, Durbin said that the total was closer to $305 million, and that did not include the estimated $178 million needed to build a facility to house and display Discovery once it was in Houston. Furthermore, it was unclear if Congress even has the right to remove an artifact, let alone a space shuttle, from the Smithsonian’s collection. The Washington, DC, institution, which serves as a trust instrumentality of the US, maintains that it owns Discovery. The paperwork signed by NASA in 2012 transferred “all rights, interest, title, and ownership” for the spacecraft to the Smithsonian. “This will be the first time ever in the history of the Smithsonian someone has taken one of their displays and forcibly taken possession of it. What are we doing here? They don’t have the right in Texas to claim this,” said Durbin.
Starbase keeps getting bigger. Cameron County, Texas, has given SpaceX the green light to build an air separator facility, which will be located less than 300 feet from the region’s sand dunes, frustrating locals concerned about the impact on vegetation and wildlife, the Texas Tribune reports. The commissioners voted 3–1 to give Elon Musk’s rocket company a beachfront construction certificate and dune protection permit, allowing the company to build a facility to produce gases needed for Starship launches. The factory will separate air into nitrogen and oxygen. SpaceX uses liquid oxygen as a propellant and liquid nitrogen for testing and operations.
Saving the roads … By having the facility on site, SpaceX hopes to make the delivery of those gases more efficient by eliminating the need to have dozens of trucks deliver them from Brownsville. The company says they need more than 200 trucks of liquid nitrogen and oxygen delivered for each launch, a SpaceX engineer told the county during a meeting last week. With their application, SpaceX submitted a plan to mitigate expected negative effects on 865 square feet of dune vegetation and 20 cubic yards of dunes, as well as compensate for expected permanent impacts to 7,735 square feet of dune vegetation and 465 cubic yards of dunes. While the project will be built on property owned by SpaceX, the county holds the authority to manage the construction that affects Boca Chica’s dunes.
ULA is stacking its third Vulcan rocket. A little more than a week after its most recent Atlas V rocket launch, United Launch Alliance rolled a Vulcan booster to the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on July 2 to begin stacking its first post-certification Vulcan rocket, Spaceflight Now reports. The operation, referred to by ULA as Launch Vehicle on Stand (LVOS), is the first major milestone toward the launch of the third Vulcan rocket. The upcoming launch will be the first operational flight of ULA’s new rocket with a pair of US military payloads, following two certification flights in 2024.
For the second time … This is the second time that this particular Vulcan booster was brought to Space Launch Complex 41 in anticipation of a launch campaign. It was previously readied in late October of last year in support of the USSF-106 mission, the Space Force’s designation for the first national security launch to use the Vulcan rocket. However, plans changed as the process of certifying Vulcan to fly government payloads took longer than expected, and ULA pivoted to launch two Atlas V rockets on commercial missions from the same pad before switching back to Vulcan launch preps.
Progress report on China’s Moon rocket. China’s self-imposed deadline of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2030 is now just five years away, and we’re starting to see some tangible progress. Construction of the launch pad for the Long March 10 rocket, the massive vehicle China will use to launch its first crews toward the Moon, is well along at the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island. An image shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, and then reposted on X, shows the Long March 10’s launch tower near its final height. A mobile launch platform presumably for the Long March 10 is under construction nearby.
Super heavy … The Long March 10 will be China’s most powerful rocket to date, with the ability to dispatch 27 metric tons of payload toward the Moon, a number comparable to NASA’s Space Launch System. Designed for partial reusability, the Long March 10 will use an all-liquid propulsion system and stand more than 92 meters (300 feet) tall. The rocket will launch Chinese astronauts inside the nation’s next-generation Mengzhou crew capsule, along with a lunar lander to transport crew members from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon using an architecture similar to NASA’s Apollo program.
Next three launches
July 11: Electron | JAKE 4 | Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia | 23: 45 UTC
July 13: Falcon 9 | Dror 1 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 04: 31 UTC
July 14: Falcon 9 | Starlink 15-2 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 02: 27 UTC
Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.
Citing research by NASA and the Smithsonian, Durbin said that the total was closer to $305 million and that did not include the estimated $178 million needed to build a facility to house and display Discovery once in Houston.
Furthermore, it was unclear if Congress even has the right to remove an artifact, let alone a space shuttle, from the Smithsonian’s collection. The Washington, DC, institution, which serves as a trust instrumentality of the US, maintains that it owns Discovery. The paperwork signed by NASA in 2012 transferred “all rights, interest, title, and ownership” for the spacecraft to the Smithsonian.
“This will be the first time ever in the history of the Smithsonian someone has taken one of their displays and forcibly taken possession of it. What are we doing here? They don’t have the right in Texas to claim this,” said Durbin.
Houston was not the only city to miss out on displaying a retired space shuttle. In 2011, Durbin and fellow Illinois Senator Mark Kirk appealed to NASA to exhibit one of the winged spacecraft at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. The agency ultimately decided to award the shuttles to the National Air and Space Museum, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, and the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
Houston, we have a problem
A prototype orbiter that was exhibited where Discovery is now was transferred to the Intrepid Museum in New York City.
To be able to bring up his points at Thursday’s hearing, Durbin introduced the “Houston, We Have a Problem” amendment to “prohibit the use of funds to transfer a decommissioned space shuttle from one location to another location.”
He then withdrew the amendment after having voiced his objections.
“I think we’re dealing with something called waste. Eighty-five million dollars worth of waste. I know that this is a controversial issue, and I know that there are other agencies, Smithsonian, NASA, and others that are interested in this issue; I’m going to withdraw this amendment, but I’m going to ask my colleagues to be honest about it,” said Durbin. “I hope that we think about this long and hard.”
Ars solves the mystery by going directly to a primary source—the president himself.
The first launch of the space shuttle finally came on April 12, 1981. Credit: NASA
The first launch of the space shuttle finally came on April 12, 1981. Credit: NASA
With 39th President Jimmy Carter passing away at the age of 100, we are revisiting this story of how he unexpectedly saved the space shuttle.
We’d been chatting for the better part of two hours when Chris Kraft’s eyes suddenly brightened. “Hey,” he said, “Here’s a story I’ll bet you never heard.” Kraft, the man who had written flight rules for NASA at the dawn of US spaceflight and supervised the Apollo program, had invited me to his home south of Houston for one of our periodic talks about space policy and space history. As we sat in recliners upstairs, in a den overlooking the Bay Oaks Country Club, Kraft told me about a time the space shuttle almost got canceled.
It was the late 1970s, when Kraft directed the Johnson Space Center, the home of the space shuttle program. At the time, the winged vehicle had progressed deep into a development phase that started in 1971. Because the program had not received enough money to cover development costs, some aspects of the vehicle (such as its thermal protective tiles) were delayed into future budget cycles. In another budget trick, NASA committed $158 million in fiscal year 1979 funds for work done during the previous fiscal year.
This could not go on, and according to Kraft the situation boiled over during a 1978 meeting in a large conference floor on the 9th floor of Building 1, the Houston center’s headquarters. All the program managers and other center directors gathered there along with NASA’s top leadership. That meeting included Administrator Robert Frosch, a physicist President Carter had appointed a year earlier.
Kraft recalls laying bare the budget jeopardy faced by the shuttle. “We were totally incapable of meeting any sort of flight schedule,” he said. Further postponing the vehicle would only add to the problem because the vehicle’s high payroll costs would just be carried forward.
There were two possible solutions proposed, Kraft said. One was a large funding supplement to get development programs back on track. Absent that, senior leaders felt they would have to declare the shuttle a research vehicle, like the rocket-powered X-15, which had made 13 flights to an altitude as high as 50 miles in the 1960s. “We were going to have to turn it, really, into a nothing vehicle,” Kraft said. “We were going to have to give up on the shuttle being a delivery vehicle into orbit.”
On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon, Apollo 11 crew members, Buzz Aldrin, left, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong and NASA Mission Control creator Chris Kraft, right, during their visit to the National Air and Space Museum on July 19, 2009.
Credit: NASA/Getty Images
On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon, Apollo 11 crew members, Buzz Aldrin, left, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong and NASA Mission Control creator Chris Kraft, right, during their visit to the National Air and Space Museum on July 19, 2009. Credit: NASA/Getty Images
Armed with these bleak options, Frosch returned to Washington. Some time later he would meet with Carter, not expecting a positive response, as the president had never been a great friend to the space program. But Carter, according to Kraft, had just returned from Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in Vienna, and he had spoken with the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, about how the United States was going to be able to fly the shuttle over Moscow continuously to ensure they were compliant with the agreements.
So when Frosch went to the White House to meet with the president and said NASA didn’t have the money to finish the space shuttle, the administrator got a response he did not expect: “How much do you need?”
In doing so, Jimmy Carter saved the space shuttle, Kraft believes. Without supplementals for fiscal year 1979 and 1980, the shuttle would never have flown, at least not as the iconic vehicle that would eventually fly 135 missions and 355 individual fliers into space. It took some flights as high as 400 miles above the planet before retiring five years ago this week. “That was the first supplemental NASA had ever asked for,” Kraft said. “And we got that money from Jimmy Carter.”
As I walked out of Kraft’s house that afternoon in late spring, I recall wondering whether this could really be true. Could Jimmy Carter, of all people, be the savior of the shuttle? All because he had been bragging about the shuttle’s capabilities to the Soviets and, therefore, didn’t want to show weakness? This Cold War mystery was now nearly 40 years in the past, but most of the protagonists still lived. So I began to ask questions.
Carter’s apathy toward space
At the root of my skepticism was this simple fact—Jimmy Carter was no great friend to the space program or, at least initially, the shuttle. Less than five months after he became president, on the date of June 9, 1977, Carter wrote the following in his White House Diary: “We continued our budget meetings. It’s obvious that the space shuttle is just a contrivance to keep NASA alive, and that no real need for the space shuttle was determined before the massive construction program was initiated.”
On NASA’s own 50th anniversary website, space historian John Logsdon described the Carter presidency in less than flattering terms. “Jimmy Carter was perhaps the least supportive of US human space efforts of any president in the last half-century,” Logsdon wrote.
In 1978 President Jimmy Carter visited Kennedy Space Center to check on the space shuttle’s progress and participate in an awards ceremony. Here he is greeted by Kennedy Space Center Director Lee Scherer. NASA
Then there was Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, who in 1972 had called the space shuttle a “senseless extravaganza.” A senator from Minnesota at the time, Mondale had vigorously opposed early funding measures to begin development of the shuttle. His views exemplified those who believed the United States had more pressing needs for its money than chasing the stars.
“I believe it would be unconscionable to embark on a project of such staggering cost when many of our citizens are malnourished, when our rivers and lakes are polluted, and when our cities and rural areas are dying,” Mondale argued during one debate over shuttle funding. “What are our values? What do we think is more important?”
Now these two men were responsible for establishing priorities for the government’s budget and supporting a shuttle that was already years behind schedule as it faced cost overruns of hundreds of millions of dollars. They were going to keep the program afloat?
The shuttle, canceled?
If Kraft is to be believed, cost overruns began really catching up to the shuttle program in 1978, necessitating the big meeting at Johnson Space Center. By then the Enterprise had already made its first free flight in the atmosphere, and the test vehicle was a public relations success. However, the programs to develop the space shuttle’s main engines and its thermal protective tiles remained far behind schedule. It does not seem beyond the realm of possibility that the program might be canceled altogether and that program managers might have worried about this.
John Logsdon, the eminent space historian who has written books about Nixon’s space policy and is working on one about Reagan, told Ars that as costs mounted, the White House Office of Management and Budget suggested to Carter that he might want to cancel the program in 1978 and 1979. This set off a series of White House meetings that culminated in an influential memo to Carter from Brigadier General Robert Rosenberg, of the National Security Council. Titled “Why Shuttle Is Needed,” the Rosenberg memo offered an effective counterpoint to the OMB concerns about cost, according to Logsdon. Written in November 1979, it helped lead Carter to a decision to fund the vehicle.
The crew of Star Trek gathers around space shuttle Enterprise in 1977.
Credit: NASA
The crew of Star Trek gathers around space shuttle Enterprise in 1977. Credit: NASA
“Strong national support and prestige is focused on Shuttle as a means for maintaining space dominance as evidenced by broad user interest and recent space policy statements,” Rosenberg wrote. “Significant delay or abandonment of the Shuttle and manned space capabilities at this time would be viewed as a loss of national pride and direction. The notion that we are forced for short term economic reasons to abandon a major area of endeavor in which we have achieved world leadership at great cost is simply not credible.”
A key player in the shuttle program at this time, Robert Thompson, pushed back on the idea that the shuttle was ever at any real risk of being canceled. Thompson and Kraft are contemporaries. They were classmates at Virginia Tech University in the early 1940s, and later both were original members of the Space Task Group that put together Project Mercury. When Kraft managed flight operations during the Apollo Program, Thompson was in charge of capsule recovery. Ultimately Thompson became the first shuttle program manager in 1970, a post he headed until 1981. Today, Thompson lives about a mile away from Kraft, and his home overlooks the same golf course.
“I never worried an instant about Carter cutting the funding off,” he said in an interview at his dining room table. “You’d have to be an idiot to get up in front of people and say, ‘I’m now going to trash $5 billion even though we’re that close to the finish line, and I’m going to quit human spaceflight.’ Carter was kind of an oddball guy to be president, but he wasn’t stupid.”
So why wasn’t it canceled?
Still, there seem to be valid reasons for concern about a program that would ultimately run three years behind schedule and, according to NASA’s comptroller, about 30 percent over its initial $5.15 billion estimated development cost. Why did Carter remain so steadfastly behind the shuttle? Was it really because Carter valued the shuttle in his arms control discussions with the Soviet Union? The answer appears to be yes.
“It is conceivable that one of his arguments to Brezhnev on why there should be SALT was our ability to use the shuttle to verify the agreements,” Logsdon said. Whereas the president unquestionably felt lukewarm toward spaceflight, he felt conversely strong about arms control. And to verify that the Soviet Union was complying with the treaty, the United States would need a constellation of spy satellites. Back in 1970, to win Department of Defense support at the program’s outset, NASA had redesigned the shuttle to launch national security payloads. Now, that decision paid off.
A book about Carter’s space policy, Back Down to Earth by Mark Damohn, draws this conclusion about a president who liked NASA’s robotic exploration and science but didn’t see the value of humans in space. “The ability of the shuttle to launch arms control verification satellites is what saved it during the Carter administration,” Damohn writes. His book does not recount any meetings with Brezhnev. When asked whether Carter might have discussed the shuttle with the Soviet general secretary and whether that might have influenced his decisions, Damohn replied that Kraft’s story is essentially correct except for the part of Carter bragging to Brezhnev. Bragging is not in Carter’s personality, Damohn told Ars.
Another person who could verify or debunk Kraft’s anecdote is Frosch himself, who left NASA in 1981 and remains a senior research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. After I related Kraft’s story, Frosch said he didn’t recall a Brezhnev connection with Carter’s decision to support shuttle funding. “That does not mean it’s not true,” he added. “I just don’t remember any clear sequence like that. But it’s certainly possible if the dates fit together correctly.”
The timeline
Do the dates fit together? For some of the story, yes, and for other parts, no. Kraft recounted fiscal problems plaguing the space shuttle program in 1977 and 1978 that delayed development of the space shuttle’s main engines, thermal protection system, and other flight critical elements. According to TA Heppenheimer’s excellent History of the Space Shuttle, by May of 1979 the shuttle’s costs had already run $830 million over the initial $5.2 billion projected cost.
Moreover, by the time of Kraft’s come-to-Jesus meeting with the shuttle program managers and Frosch at Johnson Space Center, the vehicle had already missed its original March 1978 flight date. Ultimately, the vehicle would not fly until April 12, 1981.
It is also true that the White House provided additional funding when NASA needed it most. The president approved a $185 million supplemental for fiscal year 1979 to address the technical and manufacturing delays, and NASA would receive another $300 million supplemental for the fiscal year 1980 budget. The message from Carter to his OMB officials at this time regarding these supplementals was clear—“find the money.”
What is not consistent with Kraft’s narrative is the notion that Carter bragged about the shuttle to Brezhnev and then felt compelled to follow through with the shuttle’s development for this reason. The 1979 supplemental was formally signed into law by Carter on June 4, 1979, and by then he had already greenlit another supplemental for 1980. These dates are important, because Carter did not meet with Brezhnev in Vienna to sign the SALT II Treaty until June 15.
United States President Jimmy Carter, left, and Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, welcomed journalists to the Soviet Embassy in Vienna, Austria, on June 17, 1979, on the eve of the signing of the SALT II treaty limiting strategic arms.
Credit: AFP/Getty Images
United States President Jimmy Carter, left, and Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, welcomed journalists to the Soviet Embassy in Vienna, Austria, on June 17, 1979, on the eve of the signing of the SALT II treaty limiting strategic arms. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
This means Carter could not have “bragged” about the shuttle and then have funded it. However, this does not mean the talks with Brezhnev had zero influence on Carter’s feelings for the space shuttle during the last 18 months of his turbulent presidency.
By 1980, amid double-digit inflation, spiraling gas prices, and Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution in Iran, the United States was slipping into another recession. As part of that year’s budget process, the president sought broad spending cuts. Administration officials told NASA to find budget cuts of $460 million to $860 million for the coming fiscal year.
But ultimately, NASA’s budget was spared. Heppenheimer’s book says this happened because “Carter exempted the Pentagon from these cutbacks, which meant that the Defense Department could stand fast in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan. This exemption gave Frosch an opening, as he argued that the shuttle should also be spared from cutbacks on national security grounds.” The president agreed.
Effectively, then, the shuttle program received extra funding in 1980 from a president that did not support human spaceflight and a vice president that adamantly opposed it. The funds came during a recession when the rest of the federal government was undergoing significant budget cuts. That is perhaps a greater marvel than the majestic orbiters themselves.
The ultimate source
For some perspective on all of this, Ars reached out to Carter through Steven Hochman, director of research at The Carter Center. He hadn’t heard the Brezhnev-space shuttle story, but he was happy to assist our reporting by bringing some questions to the 39th president of the United States.
Why did the president ultimately support funding the shuttle in its time of need? “I was not enthusiastic about sending humans on missions to Mars or outer space,” Carter told Ars. “But I thought the shuttle was a good way to continue the good work of NASA. I didn’t want to waste the money already invested.”
Carter also confirmed that he did, in fact, discuss the space shuttle and its capabilities with Brezhnev at the SALT II Treaty meetings in Vienna in June 1979. “I did explain to the Soviets that the space shuttle was peaceful, would not carry weapons, and would always land in the US,” Carter explained.
Finally, Hochman reviewed Carter’s schedule and found that the president had met with Frosch four times, including a brief discussion on July 11, 1979 at Camp David with the NASA administrator. This came shortly after the final treaty negotiations in Vienna. Hochman said it would not have been at all surprising if Carter discussed with Frosch that he mentioned the shuttle during the Brezhnev meeting.
From this we can draw a few conclusions—principally that despite some timeline inconsistencies, Kraft’s story appears to be mostly true. The shuttle program was in big trouble and could have been canceled or drastically modified had Carter not stepped in. Moreover, this was not a drawn out process. By all accounts Carter acted swiftly in the shuttle’s time of need. One of Carter’s primary motivations in doing so was enforcing the SALT II Treaty and, critically, Carter discussed the shuttle with Brezhnev during the treaty meetings. Important presidential decisions about the shuttle were made before and after the treaty meetings.
Perhaps what stands out most of all is the lasting, yet almost completely forgotten impact Carter had on this country’s space legacy. Despite just a passing interest in human space exploration, Carter ultimately played a pivotal role in ensuring that the longest-flying US spacecraft in history got built. That decision was instrumental, too, in development of the International Space Station. After all, NASA’s primary purpose for the shuttle was to eventually build an orbital station.
As someone who championed peace during his post-presidency, Carter no doubt would welcome the station’s driving idea of building an international consensus to work together in space. And ironically, after the shuttle finally stopped flying in 2011, America would come to rely on Russia to get into space. Today, we work with the very Cold War enemies with whom Carter negotiated arms treaties, contended with in Afghanistan, and vowed to watch closely from the orbital vehicle he shepherded across the finish line.
Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.
Enlarge / Space shuttle Endeavour, seen here in protective wrapping, was mounted on an external tank and inert solid rocket boosters at the California Science Center.
Welcome to Edition 6.29 of the Rocket Report! Right now, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is the only US launch vehicle offering crew or cargo service to the International Space Station. The previous version of Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket retired last year, forcing that company to sign a contract with SpaceX to launch its Cygnus supply ships to the ISS. And we’re still waiting on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V (no fault of ULA) to begin launching astronauts on Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule to the ISS. Basically, it’s SpaceX or bust. It’s a good thing that the Falcon 9 has proven to be the most reliable rocket in history.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Virgin Galactic flies four passengers to the edge of space. Virgin Galactic conducted its first suborbital mission of 2024 on January 26 as the company prepares to end flights of its current spaceplane, Space News reports. The flight, called Galactic 06 by Virgin Galactic, carried four customers for the first time, along with its two pilots, on a suborbital hop over New Mexico aboard the VSS Unity rocket plane. Previous commercial flights had three customers on board, along with a Virgin Galactic astronaut trainer. The customers, which Virgin Galactic didn’t identify until after the flight, held US, Ukrainian, and Austrian citizenship.
Pending retirement … Virgin Galactic announced last year it would soon wind down flights of VSS Unity, citing the need to conserve its cash reserves for development of its next-generation Delta class of suborbital vehicles. Those future vehicles are intended to fly more frequently and at lower costs than Unity. After Galactic 06, Virgin Galactic said it will fly Unity again on Galactic 07 in the second quarter of the year with a researcher and private passengers. The company could fly Unity a final time later this year on the Galactic 08 mission. Since 2022, Virgin Galactic has been the only company offering commercial seats on suborbital spaceflights. The New Shepard rocket and spacecraft from competitor Blue Origin hasn’t flown people since a launch failure in September 2022. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Iran launches second rocket in eight days. Iran launched a trio of small satellites into low-Earth orbit on January 28, Al Jazeera reports. This launch used Iran’s Simorgh rocket, which made its first successful flight into orbit after a series of failures dating back to 2017. The two-stage, liquid-fueled Simorgh rocket deployed three satellites. The largest of the group, named Mehda, was designed to measure the launch environments on the Simorgh rocket and test its ability to deliver multiple satellites into orbit. Two smaller satellites will test narrowband communication and geopositioning technology, according to Iran’s state media.
Back to back … This was a flight of redemption for the Simorgh rocket, which is managed by the civilian-run Iranian Space Agency. While the Simorgh design has repeatedly faltered, the Iranian military’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched two new orbital-class rockets in recent years. The military’s Qased launch vehicle delivered small satellites into orbit on three successful flights in 2020, 2022, and 2023. Then, on January 20, the military’s newest rocket, named the Qaem 100, put a small remote-sensing payload into orbit. Eight days later, the Iranian Space Agency finally achieved success with the Simorgh rocket. Previously, Iranian satellite launches have been spaced apart by at least several months. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
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Rocket Lab’s first launch of 2024. Rocket Lab was back in action on January 31, kicking off its launch year with a recovery Electron mission from New Zealand. This was its second return-to-flight mission following a mishap late last year, Spaceflight Now reports. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket released four Space Situational Awareness (SSA) satellites into orbit for Spire Global and NorthStar Earth & Space. Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, said in a statement that the company has more missions on the books for 2024 than in any year before. Last year, Rocket Lab launched 10 flights of its light-class Electron launcher.
Another recovery … Around 17 minutes after liftoff, the Electron’s first-stage booster splashed down in the Pacific Ocean under parachute. A recovery vessel was stationed nearby downrange from the launch base at Mahia Peninsula, located on the North Island of New Zealand. Rocket Lab has ambitions of re-flying a first stage booster in its entirety. Last August, it demonstrated partial reuse with the re-flight of a Rutherford engine salvaged from a booster recovered on a prior mission. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
PLD Space wins government backing. PLD Space has won the second and final round of a Spanish government call to develop sovereign launch capabilities, European Spaceflight reports. Spain’s Center for Technological Development and Innovation announced on January 26 that it selected PLD Space, which is developing a small launch vehicle called Miura 5, to receive a 40.5-million euro loan from a government fund devoted to aiding the Spanish aerospace sector, with a particular emphasis on access to space. Last summer, the Spanish government selected PLD Space and Pangea Aerospace to each receive 1.5 million euros in a preliminary funding round to mature their designs. PLD Space won the second round of the loan competition.
Moving toward Miura 5 … “The technical decision in favor of PLD Space confirms that our technological development strategy is sound and is based on a solid business plan,” said Ezequiel Sanchez, PLD Space’s executive president. “Winning this public contract to create a strategic national capability reinforces our position as a leading company in securing Europe’s access to space.” Miura 5 will be capable of launching about a half-ton of payload mass into low-Earth orbit and is scheduled to make its debut launch from French Guiana in late 2025 or early 2026, followed by the start of commercial operations later in 2026. PLD Space will need to repay the loan through royalties over the first 10 years of the commercial operation of Miura 5. (submitted by Leika)
