Final Homes For Space Shuttles Revealed

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida –  A teary NASA chief announced the final resting places for America’s storied shuttle program Tuesday.

Twenty-one museums and centers around the country put in bids for the space shuttles, massive mementos of 30 years of American spaceflight that are expected to be just as big tourist attractions in the years to come. The announcement came on the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle flight — and coincidentally, the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first historic first flight.

Fighting back tears, NASA chief Charlie Bolden announced that Atlantis will remain where it is, in Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, where its storied history can be shared with as many people as possible over the coming decades, Bolden said. The California Science Center will get Endeavour, he announced, while a Virginia branch of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will get Discovery.

New York City will be the new home of space shuttle Enterprise, the prototype shuttle used for test flights more than three decades ago. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand said Tuesday that Enterprise will go to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.