Am I still a bit salty?  You betcha.  The National Museum of the United States Air Force (NMUSAF) does such an outstanding job with displays, both aesthetically as well as educationally.  The anticipated impact to the region was an additional million visitors per year and a $40 million dollar influx to the local and state economies.  

Sadly, the arrival of the components on The Super Guppy generated more local response than the exhibit itself.  Why?  The NMUSAF is all about history.  Actual stories about actual aircraft on display.  A training module and faux cargo bay are a significant step down from the hisotrical impact of the actual Saigon Taxi, the actual X-15 plus an actual F-117 and an actual B-2.  Locally we are conditioned to better than a crew compartment training module.

So what happened and why?

The criteria to receive a shuttle included:

• Payment of a $28,800,000.00 bill for shuttle preparation and transportation
• Located within the United States or a possession
• Climate-controlled indoor display or storage space
• Advance educational opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
• A historical relationship with either the launch, flight operations, or processing of the Space Shuttle orbiters or the retrieval of NASA manned space vehicles, or significant contributions to human space flight
• Preparedness to receive a shuttle by December 2011

Artists' renderings of proposed retired shuttle facilities, including the under-construction fourth hanger at the NMUSAF.

On April 12, 2011, NASA announced the destinations for the orbiters.  Listen to the groan of the crowd at the 10:59 point of the video when the Enterprise was relegated the the deck of the USS Intrepid.  A mission to politically, not-so boldly, go where no shuttle had historically relationshipped before...

• Enterprise OV-101, USS Intrepid, New York Harbor
• Discovery OV-103, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
• Atlantis OV-104, Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island FL
• Endeavor OV-105, California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA

"We want to thank all of the locations that expressed an interest in one of these national treasures," Bolden said. "This was a very difficult decision, but one that was made with the (northeastern) American public in mind. In the end, these choices provide the greatest number of people ('over one million' for the USS Intrepid vs. 1.3+ million for the NMUSAF) with the best opportunity (if you don't mind spending $156 plus tax for a family of four) to share in the history and accomplishments of NASA's remarkable Space Shuttle Program (including dangerously floating up to returning space capsules and rocket boosters and plucking them from the ocean). These facilities we've chosen have a noteworthy legacy of preserving (ie parking on deck) space artifacts and providing outstanding access to U.S. and international (non-tax paying) visitors."

So TWO shuttles are within 229 miles of each other - a 3 hour and 44 minute drive including traffic!  Unless you're in Philadelphia where you get visit either in under two and a half hours - that would be the 'best opportunity' as Mr. Bolden described.  For the sake of reference, that's almost the exact distance from Beavercreek to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland (yes, within the state of Ohio).

Prior to move to New York, Enterprise was displayed at the Udvar-Hazy Center, Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Chantilly, Virginia, where Discovery has taken its place.

Space Shuttle Atlantis towed back to the Orbiter Processing Facility for the last time at the end of the Shuttle program Museums and other facilities not selected to receive an orbiter were disappointed. Elected officials representing Houston, Texas, location of the Johnson Space Center; and Dayton, Ohio, location of National Museum of the United States Air Force called for Congressional investigations into the selection process, though no such action has been taken to date. Local and Congressional politicians in Texas questioned if partisan politics played any role in the selection. Chicago media questioned the decision not to include the Adler Planetarium in the list of facilities receiving orbiters, pointing to Chicago's 3rd-largest population in the United States. The chair of the NASA committee that made the selections pointed to the guidance from Congress that the orbiters go to facilities where the most people could see them, and the ties to the space program that Southern California (home to Edwards Air Force Base, where nearly half of shuttle flights have ended and home to the plants which manufactured the orbiters and the Space Shuttle Main Engines), the Smithsonian (curator of the nation's air and space artifacts), the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (where all shuttle launches have originated from and a large tourist draw) and the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum (which served as the recovery ship for Project Mercury and Project Gemini) possess.

The NASA Inspector General released a report on an audit of the selection process for the orbit display locations in August 2011. The report highlighted issues which led to the final decision. The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, March Field Air Museum, Riverside, California, Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, McMinnville, Oregon, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Dayton, Ohio, San Diego Air and Space Museum, San Diego, Space Center Houston, Houston, Texas, Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium, Tulsa, Oklahoma and U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama scored poorly on international access. Additionally Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History and the Bush Library at Texas A&M, in College Station, Texas scored very poorly on museum attendance, regional population and was the only facility found to pose a significant risk in transporting an orbiter there. Overall, the California Science Center scored first and Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History scored last. The 2 most controversial locations which were not awarded an orbiter, Space Center Houston and National Museum of the U.S. Air Force finished 2nd to last and near the middle of the list respectively. The report noted a scoring error, which if corrected would have placed the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in a tie with the Intrepid Museum and Kennedy Visitor Complex (just below the California Science Center), although due to funding concerns (for the facility that's nearing completion) the same decisions would have been made.

The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington was not selected to receive a real orbiter but instead will receive the 3 story full-body trainer from the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. Museum officials, though disappointed that they wouldn't receive a space flown orbiter, pointed to plans to allow the public to go inside the trainer, something not possible with a real orbiter.

Several local lawmakers immediatedly cried foul!

Steve Austria:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today Congressman Steve Austria (R - Beavercreek), a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science which oversees all NASA funding, released the following statement after NASA's announcement not to land a shuttle at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (NMUSAF) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio:

"Obviously I am extremely disappointed in NASA's decision to overlook Ohio, the Midwest region, and the Air Force as a final home for a retired shuttle. However, I am immensely proud of the way the Air Force, the community, and the Ohio delegation came together and were united in this effort. The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is truly a second-to-none facility, and we didn't just meet NASA's criteria, we exceeded it. I am confident that we did everything we could to put our best foot forward and state our case for preserving a shuttle. There are still a lot of great opportunities for growth at WPAFB, and I look forward to working with the community and the Ohio delegation to continue to promote the Birthplace of Aviation and the critical role it played in the history of air and space flight."

Sherrod Brown:

“NASA ignored the intent of Congress and the interests of taxpayers. NASA was directed to consider regional diversity when determining shuttle locations. Unfortunately, it looks like regional diversity amounts to which coast you are on, or which exit you use on I-95. Even more insulting to taxpayers is that having paid to build the shuttles, they will now be charged to see them at some sites.

“Ohio is home to the Wright Brothers, to John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, and to the National Air Force Museum. Locating the shuttle in Dayton would provide 60 percent of America’s population with access to the shuttle, within a day’s drive, and with no admission costs. The fight is not over, which is why I’m calling for a federal investigation into a flawed selection process."

Reports indicate no investigation occured. 

So we received the training module, and are making the best of it.  The actual shuttles are visible from the exterior only, while the exhibit at the NMUSAF is a walk-through experience with full view of the controls it takes to navigate such an aircraft.  

It features NASA’s first Crew Compartment Trainer (CCT-1) onto which museum and display company designers engineered a full-scale shuttle orbiter mock-up, including a 57-foot tall vertical stabilizer and engine section. It allows visitors to “walk through” the mock up, including the open payload bay featuring a real but never used 1980’s era Teal Ruby satellite, providing a vivid sense of scale in relation to the other aircraft nearby in the museum’s massive Cold War hangar.

The CCT is a nose and cockpit simulator used to train hundreds of astronauts who flew aboard the various shuttles. Unlike a real Shuttle, visitors are able to view up-close both the CCT’s flight deck, including its hundreds of controls and switches, and the mid-deck level where astronauts worked and slept during space missions. The $1.7 million project took 15 months to complete.

Included is an adjacent Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Learning Node, a 60-seat amphitheater-style classroom that will show space related videos when not in use for other scheduled programs. Lt. Gen. John "Jack" Hudson, USAF (Ret), museum Director, said it is the first of several such STEM education "Nodes" that will be added once the Shuttle Exhibit moves to its permanent home in a new $34.5 million hangar expected to open in early 2016.

The new building will be the museum’s fourth hangar, a 224,000 square-foot expansion designed to house spacecraft, experimental aircraft, a collection of presidential aircraft, as well as oversized transport aircraft (many of which have been displayed outdoors or with limited access to the public at the museum’s Wright-Patterson AFB annex). There the Shuttle exhibit will eventually come together with other current and soon-to-be-added missiles and space-related artifacts, including the actual Apollo 15 capsule.

But what of the Enterprise, the shuttle purportedly headed to the NMUSAF prior to Congressional intervention.  At the time of the April 2011 announcement, protests that the process was flawed, at best, raged privately and publicly in Ohio and D.C. At the NMUSAF exhibit ribbon-cutting, more than a few whispers were heard privately pointing out that the Enterprise has suffered at its new home on the deck of New York City’s Intrepid Air & Space Museum. NASA’s choice of the retired Navy carrier museum for a Shuttle, with its high cost of access, is also clearly still mystifying to many.

But there it sits, on the deck of a naval vessel on the Hudson.  Visitors seem to enjoy the view of the underside, but according to TripAdvisor, prefer the submarine and air craft carrier itself.

So I'm salty, I admit it.  Fly-over country certainly has its lifestyle advantages... and we'll once again be important in 2016.  Just hope that voters remember April 2011 when the political machine turned their collective backs on us.