The Galileo 7 — shown here in a Star Trek episode as piloted by Dr. Mr. Spock on a doomed exploratory voyage to Taurus — is going to be added to the permanent collection at Space Center Houston in Clear Lake. A stand-in, maybe, for the real retired NASA orbiter that the center didn’t get a few years ago, this teevee spacecraft will be kept separate from “actual flown vehicles,” spokesperson Jack Moore tells Hair Balls. But that doesn’t mean it won’t have its own special effect: “Houstonians and other visitors will be able to see the Galileo at Space Center Houston’s Zero-G Diner, where, Moore says, the area’s overall theme is developing more of a science fiction atmosphere.” [Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot] Image: Memory Alpha
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November 8, 2012 – 3:56 pm
At last, that in-depth, exhaustive tour through the Johnson Space Center’s Building 30 that you’d been waiting for — coffee bars and tiny women’s rooms included: “The corridors look like they should exude the odor of decades of cigarette smoke,” space-travel fan Lee Hutchinson writes, “but the federal government’s ‘no smoking’ policy has been in place long enough that most smell faintly of stale coffee instead.” Bonus: Every console in Apollo-era Mission Control explained — or close enough. [Ars Technica] Photo: Steven Michael
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Comparing it to displays of Saturn rockets in Florida and Alabama, space historian Dwayne Day finds Space Center Houston’s model of the Apollo program leftover parked in a Johnson Space Center shed structure and looking somewhat forlorn: “. . . the building containing the Saturn V is starting to deteriorate. Interior insulation is starting to crack and peel, showing considerable degradation from my last visit a year ago. This simply reinforces the impression that the Saturn V is being stored in a big garage. Houston has had the Saturn V for decades. It has housed it indoors for almost seven years, and yet the city has not improved the presentation or shown any indication that it intends to display the Saturn V with any of the affection and intelligence that the Kennedy and Huntsville communities have given to their Saturn Vs. If you look at what Houston has done it is hard not to wonder if they would have treated a shuttle orbiter with the same indifference.” [Space Review; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Dwayne Day
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October 4, 2011 – 10:55 am
Houston may have missed out on its opportunity to play host to one of the 4 retired orbiters doled out recently by NASA. But it will end up with a space-shuttle-related attraction that jibes well with the Johnson Space Center’s longtime role as a practice and simulation site for training astronauts. Space news website CollectSpace is reporting that Space Center Houston will soon receive the Space Shuttle Explorer, a full-size orbiter mockup currently on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
One advantage of the Explorer over the 4 orbiters Houstonians wanted but couldn’t get (besides not having any layers of space dust to clean off): Visitors will be able to walk through it.
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September 14, 2011 – 8:59 am
Construction of the new Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the first new NASA spacecraft built for manned orbit since 1991, began earlier this week — in New Orleans (photo). And final assembly will take place in Florida. But a “senior administration official” tells space-beat reporter Todd Halvorson that the new 30-story tall Space Launch System for Orion that NASA is announcing today — with the strong support of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison — will provide a “stable future” for Houston’s Johnson Space Center and 3 other human-space-flight facilities around the country. [Florida Today; NASA] Photo: NASA
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August 25, 2011 – 2:25 pm
If y’all had come to Space Center Houston, they’d have built a home for a retired space shuttle there. Well, maybe. Today’s report of the NASA inspector general points out a few details in the story of how Houston lost out in the retired-space-shuttle home sweepstakes. At a presentation given to NASA administrator Charles Bolden in November 2009, 4 out of 5 options being considered at the time by the agency’s recommendation team would have given Houston a shuttle. And Bolden says Houston was a sentimental favorite for him, too. He told investigators
that if it had been strictly a personal decision, his preference would have been to place an Orbiter in Houston. He noted that “[a]s a resident of Texas and a person who . . . spent the middle of my Marine Corps career in Houston, I would have loved to have placed an Orbiter in Houston.”
So what happened?
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Among the items of space booty collector and CollectSPACE.com founder Robert Pearlman lays out in the living room of his Houston apartment for a visit from USA Today reporter Donna Leinwand Leger: a 200-lb. aluminum hatch made for the International Space Station, a tile from a space shuttle, a thruster from one of the Gemini missions, and the possibly-still-crunchy pièce de résistance: a small plastic package of toasted bread cubes carried by astronaut Michael Collins on the Apollo 11 flight. The croutons came as a throw-in bonus when Pearlman bought a $100 NASA contractor commemorative medallion on eBay several years back. The unopened package is signed by Collins and Buzz Aldrin. On an episode of PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow” 5 years ago, appraiser Gary Piattoni valued the well-traveled condiments at $25,000.
Photo: CollectSPACE
Read more about: Apartments, Home Decor, Johnson Space Center
Sure, Houston won’t be the rest home of choice for any of the space shuttles that retired intact, but what about the ones that blew up? Mayor Parker says she now supports a plan being promoted by several family members of Columbia and Challenger astronauts to store recovered remnants of the exploded Columbia orbiter in a large warehouse connected to Space Center Houston. More than 80,000 separate pieces of debris recovered from the 2003 disaster are currently stored in a 16th floor office in the Vehicle Assembly Building of Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Parker tells the Chronicle‘s Mike Morris she thinks an exhibit of burnt and broken shuttle parts here could “create a fitting memorial to those astronauts. Not a tourist attraction, but to really recognize the commitment that Houston and Houstonians have made and the sacrifices they’ve made for space. That is an opportunity.” [Houston Politics; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Columbia debris: CollectSpace
Read more about: 77058, Attractions, Houston History, Johnson Space Center, Mayor Parker, Museums, Proposed Developments
Former Space Shuttle manager Wayne Hale sees the writing on the wall: “Thousands of high paid, white collar jobs are leaving the Clear Lake area as NASA and JSC wind down. The City of Houston and the State of Texas have done, well, next to nothing. Nobody gets excited; nobody tries to bring new work here, a little lip service, no real effort.
Nope, Houston does not deserve an orbiter because Houston doesn’t care.
Don’t expect JSC and its mission control to be here forever just because we are entitled to them.
No, with the level of interest that our citizens and leaders have in JSC, I soon expect to see that facility in the hands of a different federal agency. Soon the National Park Service will be leading tours through the historic – and empty – halls of the Johnson Space Center National Historic Site.
Because we just don’t care enough to do anything about it.” [Space News]
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Note: Story updated below.
How is it possible? Houston’s innovative proposal to park a used space shuttle in the middle of a large triangular garage stuck onto the side of that space-themed amusement center near the JSC (shown above, all decked out) lost out to far less compelling plans put forward by museums in Florida, New York, and California. NASA administrator Charles Bolden announced earlier today that the 3 remaining unparked and unexploded shuttles will be moved next year to permanent homes in the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the California Science Center in L.A.’s Exposition Park. What sort of dull designs did these institutions put together?
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October 20, 2010 – 7:18 pm
Already removed from the Outpost Tavern near the corner of Nasa Parkway and Egret Bay Blvd. by the time it burned to a wet crisp last Friday: all the signed astronaut photos and NASA memorabilia that used to line its walls — plus electrical and gas service to the building. That the fire occurred despite the absence of those last two items “automatically makes the fire suspicious,” Webster fire chief Patrick Shipp told the Bay Area Citizen earlier this week. But when did all those items make their exits?
Late last year, proprietor Stephanie Foster announced the storied longtime JSC hangout — it was known as the U-Joint back in the moon-mission days — would be closing in January because new landowners wanted to build “something else” on the site. But a few weeks’ worth of farewell bashes had to be canceled after Foster and her husband found themselves locked out of the building on January 16th. Foster’s landlord, Walter Wright, told Houston Chronicle beer blogger Ronnie Crocker at the time that he and his brothers owned the building, the business, and its contents, and that they planned to move the former army barracks building to a strip of land they owned 100 feet of way — and reopen it as a family restaurant. Wright said he felt he needed to shutter the building immediately because of concerns that valuable NASA memorabilia were already being removed:
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Read more about: 77058, Bars, Fires, Johnson Space Center, Leasing, Neighborhood Disputes, Webster
December 7, 2009 – 9:05 am
A quick roundup:
- Closing in January: NASA hangout the Outpost Tavern, an army barracks building turned spacesuit-and-bikini-festooned party site, down NASA Rd. 1 from the Johnson Space Center at 18113 Kings Lynn St. Memorialized in the appropriately named Clint Eastwood “one last time for the has-been astronauts” flick Space Cowboys, the bar and burger joint had to be partially rebuilt in early 2005 after a short in a neon sign caused a small fire. Second-generation owner Stephanie Foster reports the property has been sold to new owners who “plan to build something new on the site, perhaps a service station or shopping center.” Fans of the Outpost Tavern’s many good ol’ days will drown their sorrows on-site in a 3-day-long goodbye-party bash, January 8-10.
- Closed, Just a Month After Opening: The new 7,000-sq.-ft. prototype Bailey Banks & Biddle store in CityCentre. The new owners of the former Zales mall mainstay declared bankruptcy in August, but went ahead with the store’s planned move from its old location across the street at Town & Country Village anyway. Other local Triple Bs didn’t get the grand-opening treatment before going dark: “The Galleria and Willowbrook Mall locations are in liquidation, while The Woodlands Mall store and the new CityCentre location are expected to go dark on Dec. 24 following liquidation sales, according to store employees.”
- Open Only for One Last Big Sale: Brian Stringer Antiques, strung along West Alabama just east of Shepherd in a few separate buildings for the last 40 or so years. Stringer and his wife will retire to their turreted 14th century chateau — a former fortified hospital built by monks for victims of a mysterious skin disease — in the French countryside between Bordeaux and Gers. But lucky us, they’ll stick around Houston long enough to sell the majority of their stock of European antiques, reproductions, and fabrics at 40 percent off, Joni Webb reports: “The French house is so charming – you really feel like you’re in the South of France, except for Houston’s traffic out the front window!” When you’re done shopping there, Webb commands:
be sure to also stop in at Ginger Barber’s Sitting Room which is next door. Further up the street is Tara Shaw and Heather Bowen Antiques. Continue up W. Alabama to Antiques and Interiors on Dunlavy, Boxwood and The Country Gentleman, then hit up Foxglove and Alcon Lighting.
If you haven’t passed out from exhaustion yet, turn around and head back to Brian Stringer’s and go the other way on W. Alabama. Stop at Jane Moore’s, then at Ferndale, go to Brown, Bill Gardner, Made in France, and Objects Lost and Found. Back on W. Alabama, continue on to Thompson and Hansen, The Gray Door, Chateau Domingue, Indulge on Saint Street, and 2620 on Joanel.
More openings and closings:
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Comment of the Day: Just To Drag a Shuttle Mockup into Houston
“. . . I contacted the JSC’s PAO Office and found out that it was originally due here on March 10th but an area from the channel to JSC’s dock would have to be dredged in order to accommodate the tug pushing the barge. Current estimates have pushed the delivery time to some time in July. . . . I feel that the mock-up coming to JSC is a ray of hope on an otherwise bleak future. . . .” [Neal_K, commenting on Space Center Houston Getting KSC Space Shuttle Mockup Hand-Me-Down, Compartment Trainer, New Building]