Could the space shuttle Atlantis, which grabbed hold of the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday, wind up parked on a pier in the Hudson River five blocks from Times Square? That is the pie in the sky for the operators of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

Museum officials have taken the first small step toward acquiring one of the three space shuttles that NASA plans to hand off when the shuttle program ends next year. They are enlisting support from elected officials and former astronauts for their idea of adding a decommissioned shuttle to the Intrepid’s eclectic collection of military aircraft, a Mercury space capsule, a submarine and a Concorde passenger jet.

They dream of housing the shuttle in a glass enclosure on the end of Pier 86 at 46th Street on the West Side of Manhattan, home to the Intrepid since 1982. But they have plenty of competition from museums around the country, including the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The Intrepid museum was one of 20 institutions that responded by a March 17 deadline to ask NASA about its plan to give away the last of the shuttles: Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis. The space agency estimates the cost of preparing and delivering them at $42 million each.

Atlantis, which took off on Monday to repair the Hubble telescope, and the two other active shuttles are scheduled to fly missions through September 2010.

(Source: New York Times)