The "natural climate" for the Shuttle was something like 99.5% indoors in a hangar / VAB, 0.4% space, and 0.1% outside. And they definitely didn't leave it out during hurricanes.
I've seen it in Dulles and I've seen Kennedy Space Center museum and I'm telling you that looking up at a rocket in the Florida sun is a far more impactful experience than seeing the shuttle in Dulles.
If it were up to me I'd park it on a taxiway (or stick it in the parking lot at Dulles, lol) and give tours.
And I'm telling you that looking up at a decrepit, collapsing rocket in a few decades would be a bit less impactful. Short-term (and subjective) benefit for long-term complete loss of the Shuttle eventually. The Smithsonian wants to be able to show this thing off a thousand years from now, if they can.
Outdoor storage for priceless, fragile artifacts is just plain odd.
Why isn't a replica enough then? it will hit the same for people who go to museums to "feel" how it is (that's my case), and for people who wants to see the original without degradation, a museum is great.
I've been aboard the Hermione replica, the Santa Maria replica, a greyhound replica, a Uboot replica in the last two years (and a 1800 steamboat, and a lot of others), honestly for people who like to imagine how it feels like, a replica is better, as you can really visit it.
Keeping the originals safe but still observable is different, and address different people.
Sorry, Grayhound, a corsair ship. The replica tour the british islands and Brittany. I think i read about the HMS greyhound last month and in-conscientiously thought that was also how the corsair was written too.
"'We have discussed enclosing it, but those plans are not finalized yet,' said Protze. 'We brought the best of the best in to redo the rocket, inside and out, and so I feel confident that if it was to stay outside, it would be good for another 20 to 25 years.'"
You don't understand. Museums are a business, a nonprofit and often subsidized business, but still a business. The public is less served and engaged and exited per visit/hour/etc seeing pristine vehicles from behind a rope in an air conditioned building. Letting the public visit these things in the most ideal setting (which is typically whatever is closest to operating conditions) and ideally interact with, walk through and touch them is what builds appetite for further museum funding, expansion, etc.
After decades of environmental wear from outdoor display it can be moved inside, assuming there's enough public interest to justify that. The degradation of visitor experience at that point is acceptable because the item is older, more "historical" etc. The restoration of the item and subsequent redisplay itself then generates further public interest and/or revenue (especially in the modern age of Youtube and the like).
People need to interact with the stuff that their parents or their parents parents remember in order to get exited about (and fund) preserving the (best of) stuff that nobody alive has any connection to. You need to let patrons today sit in the Huey grandpa served in order to get the money to restore the Ford Trimotor nobody alive has much connection to. This is the same situation but bigger. The fact that the shuttles were a national prestige project and their location is a subject of national politics may cause emotion to mask things but on a 10+yr timeline the reality is the same.
This is something that maritime museums have long since figured out.
Sure sounds like you're trying to "justify a preconceived opinion".
> The public is less served and engaged and exited per visit/hour/etc seeing pristine vehicles from behind a rope in an air conditioned building.
The Smithsonian's responsibility is, in part, to many, many future generations of the public.
> Letting the public visit these things in the most ideal setting (which is typically whatever is closest to operating conditions)…
Again, that's either a hangar, or space. "Outside" is the spot it spent the least time, and visitors don't hugely appreciate a vacuum chamber from the inside.
> The degradation of visitor experience at that point is acceptable because the item is older, more "historical" etc.
That's essentially the opposite of how these things work.
> This is something that maritime museums have long since figured out.
The rockets are mostly painted metal while the shuttle's white surface is mostly a woven thermal protection blanket material. Significantly different materials more likely to be damaged in the elements.
I must have a different expectation of "impactful". To me, the long entryway walk ending at a platform from which you can see the SR-71 and Discovery lined up was freaking amazing. Blew my kids' minds, too.
Yeah the only real plus I could see to putting it outside would be if you made it part of a fully assembled set with the boosters and fuel tanks but then you couldn't see all the little details that I personally love from seeing it up close and knowing this thing that's 10 feet from me went to space. You could put a replica up if you were doing the fully assembled version and get just as big an impact because the flaws in the replica would be hidden by distance.
They have an iron bird on srbs and an et on pedestals at SpaceCamp in Huntsville. This is the only reasonable way to display an orbiter outdoors: use a scrap one. The remaining flown orbiters should be preserved indoors, obviously.
I'd rather it hit pretty hard for much longer.