NY1.com

  60º

You are not signed in  |  Sign in here  |  Help

You're viewing a lite version of NY1.com

Time Warner Cable customers: Sign in with your TWC ID for video access.

Get my TWC ID. | Get TWC service. | Read the FAQ.

Updated 04/12/2011 10:26 PM

Intrepid Museum To Receive NASA Shuttle Prototype

By: NY1 News

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

Manhattan's West Side will soon become the new home for a historic prototype space shuttle.

NASA announced Tuesday that the Enterprise will be moved to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, housed on the Hudson River.

The announcement comes on the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle flight.

The Enterprise was a test model that flew, but never orbited space and was not equipped with a heat shield.

It is expected to move from its current home at the Smithsonian later this year.

New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand were part of the lobbying group to bring a shuttle to the city.

"When you get to actually see a space shuttle that's part of our space program and allows the missions to take place, it's really exciting. I mean, the whole point of the Intrepid is to teach children," said Gillibrand.

Also announced Tuesday were the destinations for the remaining shuttles.

NASA's Discovery is bound for the Smithsonian Museum in northern Virginia; Atlantis will be housed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and Endeavor will go to Los Angeles.

Famed Soviet Spacecraft Sells For $3 Million

Meanwhile, an old Russian spacecraft netted an out-of-this-world price Tuesday.

Intrepid Museum To Receive NASA Shuttle Prototype
The Vostok 3KA-2 Space capsule sold at auction at Sotheby's on the Upper East Side for close to $3 million.

It was used 50 years ago as a test module for the first flight by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to fly into space.

"I do hope it goes into a wonderful public space eventually, where the public, children and adults too, can spend sometime understanding how extraordinarily heroic the first men and women who went into space were," said Sotheby's Vice Chairman David Redden.

The Vostok was the only capsule to make it out of Russia and into private hands.

Now it will be headed home, as a Russian buyer had the winning bid.