A new contender has arisen for the final resting place of one of the space shuttle orbiters: Texas A&M University in College Station. That is a proposal of Zachary Cummings, an ocean engineer, entrepreneur, and Aggie alumnus.
The proposal would display a shuttle orbiter at a new facility to be built at a new museum that would be built near the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. The former President appears to be intrigued enough by the idea to have written a letter in support of it.
There are about thirty places in the United States that have proposed displaying one of the space shuttle orbiters. Texas A&M does not have as much of a historic connection to the shuttle program as, say, the Johnson Space Center in Houston or the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But the arguments for displaying a shuttle orbiter in College Station are serious ones.
College Station is centrally located between Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. College Station is higher than the flood plain, has less pollution, less humidity, and is farther inland and thus shielded to some extent from hurricanes, Cummings has suggested.
On the other hand, Texas will get only one shuttle orbiter if it gets any at all, which places College Station in direct competition with Houston. Houston has a preexisting museum, Space Center Houston, with some experience in displaying flight articles, however.
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