Three Texas GOP lawmakers are alleging that the Smithsonian Institution illegally lobbied Congress to block the transfer of the space shuttle Discovery from a Virginia museum to Houston, home of NASA’s Mission Control, and called on the Justice Department to investigate.
Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz along with Rep. Randy Weber alleged in a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Pamela Bondi that Smithsonian staff violated federal lobbying law by urging congressional Appropriations committees to use funding bills to block money for the transfer as well as circulating cost estimates that “exceed quotes from experienced private-sector logistics firms by more than tenfold.”
The 2025 reconciliation law included a provision authorizing the relocation of the shuttle from its current display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., to a site near Houston’s Johnson Space Center. The bill also provided $85 million for the move, at least $5 million of which would be used for transporting the shuttle.
