Houston’s Consolation Prize — Full Size Mock-up of Space Shuttle Orbiter

It's reported that Houston will get an artifact of the Space Shuttle program after all, but it won't be one of the recently retired shuttle orbiters.  Houston will get the full size orbiter mock-up that's been on public display for years at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Officially, its name is Explorer, and it's the full scale copy NASA built to show tourists at KSC.  It's displayed next to a gantry-style tower with an elevator that allows visitors to walk through it and see a mock-up payload, a cockpit with controls and instruments, and a mannequin wearing the  bright orange pressure suit the shuttle astronauts wore.

There's even a full size mockup external fuel tank mated to two solid rocket boosters.

Because KSC is getting one of the real orbiters, NASA will move the mock-up to Space Center Houston, the visitor center next door to the Johnson Space Center.

Space Center Houston will build a new 8,000 square foot facility to house the mock-up and the mockup hardware that comes with it.

The Houston visitors center also hopes to get the “white room” and gantry from Launch Pad 39B.  That would allow them to recreate the full experience of astronauts entering the space shuttle in a vertical position on the launch pad.

A lot of people are disappointed that Houston won't get a real orbiter, but others say the mock-up is almost as good, because it's more tourist friendly than the real thing.

via Houston’s consolation prize: Space Shuttle Explorer | SciGuy | a Chron.com blog.

This news does little or nothing to soothe the anger and disgust many Houstonians feel about being passed over in the shuttle orbiter "give-away".

Many Houston Congress-members want an investigation of NASA's decision making process, and they promise to use their influence on NASA's budget to force NASA to reconsider.