Only way to move Space Shuttle Discovery is to chop it into pieces, White House told

How would you move Space Shuttle Discovery from Virginia to Texas? The White House Office of Management and Budget asked NASA and the Smithsonian Institution and the response was to dismantle it.

The space agency and research institute estimate "that the cost to move Discovery to Houston would, at minimum, be between $120 million and $150 million, exclusive of the cost of building a new exhibit in Houston." This is considerably more than the $85 million budgeted for transportation and exhibition construction. Unfortunately, doing so may require disassembling the Space Shuttle.

A Capitol Hill source confirmed to The Register the existence of the exchange.

The Space Shuttle was never designed to be dismantled. In addition to its frame and internals, the vehicle is covered with delicate ceramic tiles, capable of withstanding the heat of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, along with thermal blankets. Then there are the cables and connectors ...