Final Frontier

For Sale: Space Shuttles

Redundant vehicles will cost $42 million each.

So much for Bush’s dream of getting to Mars. Nasa is so broke it is putting up for sale its fleet of space shuttles to raise money for the next phase of space discovery. Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour, which between them have flown 86 missions into space since 1984, will cost $42 million each when they are made redundant in 2010. The engines will cost extra. But Iran and North Korea need not apply. According to the "request for information" document that announced the sale, “Special attention will be paid to ensuring they will retire to appropriate places." And only American citizens will be eligible to buy the vehicles, which will be sold with all space-worthy fittings and fixtures except the main engines. In the past, Nasa has donated historically important space hardware to museums for free.