Seattle won't get shuttle — but will get full-size simulator

It looks a lot like a space shuttle — if you can overlook the fact that it doesn't have wings and it's made out of plywood.

And, unlike a real shuttle, it doesn't travel atop a Boeing 747 nor will it be connected to massive rockets.

But it can be taken apart and moved by truck.

It's NASA's "full-fuselage shuttle trainer," and it could arrive at the Museum of Flight in Seattle next year.

Museum officials for months have said the trainer was likely coming to Seattle, but received official word Monday, taking some of the sting out of news that the city won't get a NASA space shuttle.

"It's not a shuttle, but it may be better," said Doug King, the museum's CEO, adding that visitors will be able to go inside the trainer.

King said he'll travel to Houston within the next month to learn more about the trainer and the logistics of moving it to Seattle.

In contrast, the four real shuttles, which will go to museums in New York, California, Florida and the Washington, D.C., area, must be displayed in a way that ensures the public can't touch them, to protect them from damage that could occur even from the oil on people's hands.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former shuttle commander, announced the shuttles' final destinations Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center, his voice breaking with emotion as he spoke of "a love affair that's hard to put into words" between astronauts and the vehicles that carried them into space.

The shuttle Discovery will go to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Endeavour, targeted for its final launch April 29, will spend its retirement in Los Angeles at the California Science Center. Atlantis, targeted to complete the final mission of the shuttle program this summer, will go to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Enterprise, which was used for early flight testing but did not fly in space, will go to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York. Competition for the shuttles was intense, with 21 museums and visitors centers applying to host a shuttle, and drumming up support from the public, elected officials and people connected to the space program.

The clearest loser was Houston, home of Mission Control and the site advocated for a shuttle by several widows and a widower of astronauts lost in the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

Former astronaut Bonnie Dunbar, who led the Seattle Museum of Flight's effort to get a space shuttle, acknowledged her disappointment at Tuesday's decision, but said she was thrilled to get the trainer.

She said Bolden was faced with difficult decisions, and she complimented him for handling the selection process with "such grace and fairness."

Dunbar, former CEO of the Museum of Flight and a veteran of five shuttle missions, said the trainer looks like a real shuttle inside, though not all of the instrumentation is active.

It's used in a range of training activities, such as operating controls for cargo-bay cameras, galley equipment and other systems.

Among the procedures Dunbar and astronauts practiced in the trainer involved getting out of it through windows on its upper side, then lowering themselves to the ground on ropes — something they might need to do if the shuttle's side hatches didn't open after landing.

King said it's not known how extensively or regularly the public will be able to go inside the trainer, and that details of the exhibit have yet to be worked out.

NASA officials telephoned Museum of Flight officials shortly before Tuesday's announcement to let them know Seattle was not receiving a shuttle. "Obviously, that's not the news we were hoping for," King said.

But he said the lack of a shuttle won't change the museum's goal of becoming "the premier air and space education museum in the world."

The state's political leadership quickly expressed disappointment that Seattle won't have an actual shuttle.

In a statement, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she was "going to continue pushing NASA to keep us in mind as they think about where to send future space-program artifacts."

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said the Museum of Flight would have made "an ideal home for a NASA space shuttle," given the state's history of aviation innovation.

Fellow Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott also expressed disappointment in an emailed statement: "The Seattle area is one of the top aerospace hubs in the world and, in my mind, it would have been an ideal host for a retired shuttle."

But the Seattle congressman said the shuttle trainer would "allow visitors to actually walk into the simulator unit, which wouldn't have been possible if the museum received a retired space shuttle."

Gov. Chris Gregoire said her disappointment was tempered by NASA's decision to give Seattle its only full-size trainer, which she called "a true win for our dynamic museum."

The space-shuttle program is ending after having flown more than 130 missions, carrying more than 350 people into space and traveling more than 500 million miles.

The trainer will be the showpiece of the museum's $12 million Space Gallery, being constructed across East Marginal Way South from the main museum building, and connected to it by a skybridge. The museum also has moon rocks, an Apollo space capsule and a Mars lander among its space-related contents.

Staff reporter Jonathan Martin contributed to this report.

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222

or jbroom@seattletimes.com