we're getting a space shuttle!!

albeit a fairly old-and-busted one:

NASA’s space shuttles, which have been carrying astronauts aloft for 30 years, were assigned to their final destinations on Tuesday: one will head to the nation’s capital, another to Los Angeles, and the third from its current home at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the center’s visitor complex next door. 

Conspicuous among the unsuccessful hopefuls were the Museum of Flight in Seattle, which had already begun construction of a wing that it hoped would house an orbiter; the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Ohio; and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas, the site of mission control for the 135 shuttle missions.

suck it, seattle.

The disappointment in Houston was pronounced. Representative Pete Olson, a Republican whose district includes the space center, said in a statement, “This oversight smacks of a political gesture in an agency that has always served above politics.”

suck it, houston.

With the Discovery headed to the Smithsonian, the museum will no longer have need for the Enterprise, the shuttle that has been on display there since 2003. The Enterprise, which was used for early glide tests but was never sent into orbit, will now go the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan. (via)

tooot tttoooooOOOOoOOOooOooOooooTTtttt!!!!11111