Facing a shortage of parts and money, NASA is taking back part of an exhibit on the space shuttle from an Alabama museum, according to a newspaper report.
The Marshall Space Flight Center and the United Space Alliance, NASA's shuttles operations contractor, last week contacted the http://www.ussrc.com/US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and asked it to return the forward assemblies from the solid rocket boosters on the museum's full-size shuttle exhibit "for use in the space program," the Huntsville Times newspaper reported Sunday.
The shuttle's solid rocket boosters serve as propellant motors for the spacecraft during launch. After launch, they separate from the shuttle at 200,000 feet and fall into the ocean, where they are recovered, towed back to shore and refurbished for another flight.
But several of the forward assemblies used in the shuttle program have been damaged or lost since 1981, when the shuttle program began. NASA told the newspaper that it asked for the parts back to make sure the space agency does not fall short of hardware over the coming months as it constructs the new international space station.
Officials at NASA were not available to comment on Sunday. At the museum, workers said officials had the day off and were not available to discuss the report.
The Clinton administration's fiscal 2000 budget request for NASA earlier this month represented a decline for the fifth straight year. Building new forward assemblies would take three years and cost US$5 million to $10 million each.
The equipment taken from the museum display will be replaced with mock-ups, the newspaper said.
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