Have an extra $42 million?
NASA plans to put up the space shuttles for sale after the last mission in 2010. Three shuttles are available, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, but NASA is likely to keep one for the memories.
The cash-strapped agency is facing further budget cuts, but still has the plan to return to the moon. In the past, NASA has donated its space hardware to appropriate places.
There are a couple of requirements to buying a shuttle. You have to be an American citizen and promise to display the shuttle in a climate-controlled location. With a 2,200 ton mass, the shuttle requires a large garage to park it in too.
The shuttle will come with all its gadgets except the engines. Those are for sale at $800,000 apiece.
That is a little bit like buying a used car, and then being told the engine is separate. But I guess no one is expecting to take one of these deals out on a test run, so it doesn’t matter.
There is one glitch to the sale. The incoming Obama administration is considering the feasibility of extending the shuttles after 2010. The new Orion capsule and Ares rocket become available in 2015.
