December 30, 2025
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New NASA chief just put a new spin on the Texas space shuttle saga
New NASA boss Jared Isaacman has hinted he may break with Texas lawmakers’ push to move the iconic space shuttle. Discovery of the Smithsonian in Houston
The Space Shuttle Discovery arrives in its hangar for display at the Smithsonian in 2012.
Dane Penland/Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
The great saga of the Texan space shuttle has taken a new turn: Jared Isaacman, chosen by President Donald Trump to lead NASA, indicated that the space shuttle Discovery After all, he may not move out of his retirement home at a Smithsonian museum in Houston, despite efforts by Texas lawmakers over the past year to make that happen.
The effort to change Discovery from its hangar in Chantilly, Virginia, an annex of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, had already been described as a “heist” by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois in July. That same month, the move was written into law by the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which provided $85 million to transfer the shuttle to the Houston Space Center museum within 18 months. Still, in a recent interview with CNBC, Isaacman said it remains to be seen whether the spacecraft can be moved.
“My job now is to make sure we can undertake such transportation within the budget we have and, of course, most importantly, ensure the safety of the vehicle,” Isaacman said. NASA and the Smithsonian estimated that the displacement Discovery would cost at least $120 million.
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If that proves impossible, he added, NASA could then move another vehicle to Houston. “We have spaceships that circle the Moon with Artemis III, III, II And V. One way or another, we are going to make sure that the Johnson Space Center receives its historic spacecraft,” Isaacman said.
Previously maligned space scientists and legal experts Discoveryin interviews with Scientific American as “theft” and a “vanity project”. Others expressed concern that the Texas museum would not be able to properly house and maintain the spacecraft.
Amanda Montañez; Source: NASA Office of Inspector Generaldata)
“Such a move would be a waste of money, a vanity project likely to destroy an almost priceless American treasure,” said Matthew Hersch, a scholar of legal history at New York University Law School and an associate in the history of science department at Harvard University. Scientific American.
“The removal of Discovery of the Smithsonian Institution would be a theft, by the federal government, of an artifact worth $2 billion from a private museum that has owned and properly maintained it for over a decade,” he said.
Discovery was first launched in 1984, completing 39 missions to space – more than any of the four other NASA-built space shuttles that went to space – including a mission to place the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit in 1990.
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