Houston bids hard, worries space history not enough to win a shuttle

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By John Nolan, Staff Writer Updated 7:12 AM Wednesday, April 6, 2011

HOUSTON — This Texas city, longtime home of the space program’s Mission Control and training site for the nation’s astronauts, is making a Texas-sized pitch to be chosen by NASA as the permanent display home of a space shuttle.

But some supporters suspect it’s a lost cause.

Prominent Houston business leaders stepped forward to lobby the government for assignment of an orbiter to Space Center Houston, the Johnson Space Center’s visitor center that is operated by a nonprofit company.

Pro-Houston websites were created, notably one titled “Roger, Houston, it’s good to be home.”

Houston’s supporters asked spouses of astronauts who died during the 2003 aerial breakup of shuttle Columbia to make personal pleas to NASA officials for the city’s shuttle bid.

Houston’s history as the space program’s mission control center, its continuing administration of the shuttle program, its 4 million residents and tourist appeal should all make the city a slam-dunk choice for displaying a space shuttle, said Bob Mitchell, a business leader helping to coordinate the city’s push to be selected.

Mitchell is on the board of directors of the nonprofit Manned Spaceflight Education Foundation Inc., operator of Space Center Houston.

The center displays actual spacecraft from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs, a spacesuit worn by Pete Conrad when he walked on the moon’s surface in November 1969 during the Apollo 12 mission and other artifacts on long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution.

“It needs to be here, simply because of the history, simply because of the astronauts,” Mitchell, 56, a lifelong Houston resident, said of the shuttle.

But he said Texas elected officials have told him that political maneuverings that favor other states important to President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign could cost Houston an orbiter.

“It doesn’t look like we’re going to get one,” Mitchell said Tuesday during an interview at Space Center Houston. “Our elected officials are very concerned that we won’t get one.”

NASA has said it hasn’t decided which rivals will receive a shuttle.

Richard E. Allen Jr., president and chief executive officer of Space Center Houston and a former Six Flags amusement park executive, said he is hoping for the best, but can’t rest easily awaiting NASA’s decision.

“We certainly haven’t been given any assurances that we’re at the head of the pack,” Allen said Tuesday.

Like 20 other competitors for the shuttles, Texas’ congressional delegation and business leaders teamed to write to or meet with NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr., who will announce on April 12 who gets the shuttles Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis and the similar-looking test glider Enterprise.

Supporters have been urged to sign pro-Houston petitions, with more than 67,000 signatures collected so far.

Houston’s business community raised $80,000 for a publicity blitz in the final 10 days before NASA’s April 12 announcement, said Mitchell, president of Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, a business organization that teamed with counterpart the Greater Houston Partnership to lobby for Houston’s shuttle bid.

Still, Houston perceives a problem.

The Houston Chronicle reported in a recent blog that “the general view of the Texas congressional delegation seems to be that, while it’s still worth fighting the good fight to get a shuttle in Houston, the good fight may be a lost cause.”

Those adhering to this view cite speculation that rivals, including the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Fla.; the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum; and Seattle’s Museum of Flight have surged ahead of Houston.

NASA has already promised a flown shuttle, likely Discovery, to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

The Kennedy Space Center, which has long had a friendly rivalry with fellow NASA site Houston, was the site of all the shuttle launches and is regarded as a strong candidate to receive an orbiter.

NASA won’t identify the 21 entities that requested shuttles. The agency told the interested sites that they would have to pay $28.8 million for preparation and delivery of a shuttle.

Space Center Houston and its supporters are prepared to raise that amount, plus almost $50 million on top of that to construct a new building that would house a shuttle and other space program artifacts, Allen said.

Supporters of some competing sites have said it is unfair that Obama, in his fiscal 2012 budget, adopted an Air Force proposal to allocate $14 million for preparation and delivery of the orbiter Atlantis to the Air Force museum.

Fundraising remains a challenge, particularly in a slowly recovering economy.

“We are working it quietly right now,” Allen said. “It is very hard to get firm commitments without knowing the decision on where the orbiters will go.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Space Center Houston

The official visitor center of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, which would house a shuttle for display.

Location: Houston, Texas.
Size: 180,000 square feet.
Visitors per year: 750,000.
Major attractions: NASA tram tour, International Space Station exhibit, Saturn V building, Kids Space Place.
Cost of admission: Adults $20.95, children (ages 4-11) $16.95, seniors $19.95.

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