What is a Global Peace Museum and why does it need a space shuttle?
NASA says no to sending Atlantis to a nonexistent peace museum in College Park
- Wikimedia.org
- Not headed to Atlanta
A local non-profit called Atlanta City of Peace, Inc. really wanted NASA’s retired space shuttle Atlantis to come to Atlanta and be the centerpiece of their Global Peace Museum, a thing that does not yet exist, but — according to an artist’s rendering that looks like it should be airbrushed on the side of a van — will be a post-apocalyptic football stadium. Alas, NASA announced that the shuttle will instead be docked at Kennedy Space Center, because that is a place that exists and also a place where shuttles belong.
Why does a peace museum have to do with space shuttles? The museum’s mission statement explains (but not really):
MISSION: GPM will tell the exciting history of how travel, tourism, teamwork and trade have built the health and wealth of our Global Family through ages past, with Space as the next frontier.
Other retired shuttles are going to museums, but the aerospace variety — the Smithsonian Institution in D.C., the California Science Center in L.A. and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York.