Think New York City should have its very own space shuttle?
So, apparently, do 45,000 other people–that’s the number of folks who have (so far) signed a petition to have a space shuttle given to the Intrepid Air and Space Museum in Manhattan.
NASA is retiring their current space shuttle fleet, and three of them will be made available to different institutions across the country. The three shuttles are the Discovery, Endeavor and Atlantis.
The Intrepid is asking people to sign a petition in order to bring one of the shuttles to the city. The Intrepid’s president, Bill White, says the petition will be sent to NASA once they have 50,000 signatures. White has been making the rounds of radio and TV shows to promote the Intrepid as a home for the shuttle.
The museum wants to display the shuttle along the aircraft carrier and the Growler submarine docked at Manhattan’s Pier 86.
In the 1960s, the Intrepid served as a spacecraft recovery vessel. It also recently served as the final stop of the “Legends of Aerospace Tour,” and was visited by Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan (the first and last astronauts to walk on the moon.)
Current exhibitions at the Intrepid include “Mission to Mars” (through June 30), which shows a full-scale replica of the Mars Rover. Viewers can also get a peek at Curiosity, the probe that will launch in March 2011.
For more information about the museum or the petition, go to the museum’s website at intrepidmuseum.org, or call 212 254-0072. The Intrepid is on 46th Street and 12th Avenue.