§18363 Disposition of Orbiter Vehicles

Summary

When the Space Shuttle program ends under section 18362, the NASA Administrator must take any remaining shuttle orbiters out of service and make them safe and preserve their history before they become surplus government property. The orbiters must be offered for public display through a competitive process under the disposition plan in section 613(a) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2008 (42 U.S.C. 17761(a)). Priority goes to applicants that meet the plan and that will give the most public benefit, such as improving STEM education or having a historic link to shuttle launches, operations, processing, recovery, or important work in human space flight. The orbiters must be displayed and kept up under agreements made under section 613(a). The Smithsonian Institution, which on October 11, 2001 housed the Space Shuttle Enterprise, must pick any new location for Enterprise. Congress may provide whatever money NASA needs to do this. Those funds are in addition to amounts in title I, and the President may ask for them as supplemental needs in the proper fiscal years.