Two Texas Republicans want to use taxpayer dollars to seize the Space Shuttle Discovery from the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center and move it to Texas.
The senators from the Lone Star State added legislation to One Big Beautiful Bill that would move Discovery from Northern Virginia to Texas.
Air and Space Museum Director Chris Browne said he is unaware of a member of Congress or any administration ever trying to seize an artifact from the Smithsonian.
Now, Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz want to move Discovery to Space Center Houston.
The Smithsonian is a quasigovernment entity, receiving about 60% of its funding from taxpayer dollars, but Browne says it has been well established – though never tested in court – that the artifacts in its various collections are not up for grabs.
“It’s never been considered, nor should it be considered, government property,” he said. “It is beyond the reach of others that would want to sort of pick from it.”
Sens. Cruz and Cornyn asked Congress to appropriate $85 million of taxpayer money to move the Space Shuttle Discovery from Chantilly tdown to Houston. However, the Smithsonian estimates it would cost between $300 million and $400 million of taxpayer dollars to move Discovery across the country.
Last week, at an event at Space Center Houston, Cornyn said Houston’s role in the space program is deserving of the Discovery and that the space shuttle should “come back home,” although the ship wasn’t manufactured in Houston, nor did it launch from Houston.
News4 reached out to Cornyn’s office for an interview but hasn’t heard back.
“For us to tell stories authentically and on behalf of the nation, it’s important that we steward this collection intact just as it is and resist efforts to dismantle or pull from it from any corner,” Browne said.
The bill to move Discovery was initially shot down because of a Senate rule limiting what legislation can be tacked onto other bills, but as the Senate works through One Big Beautiful Bill, it could come up again.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
