You Can Now Buy Space Shuttle Launch Facilities

Are you a cartoonishly wealthy person who spent your childhood longing to be an astronaut? Or possibly a giant aerospace company feeling squeezed in your current digs? Well, NASA wants to help. With the recent end to the Space Shuttle program, an effort based largely out of Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, the Sunshine State’s spaceport has become a collection of awesome, but no longer needed, equipment and facilities. And NASA wants to sell it to you, says Popular Science.

From the Vehicle Assembly Building, where Saturn V rockets were joined to the crew capsules during the Apollo era, to the launch pad, Shuttle landing strip and more, NASA is looking to sell off or lease out its facilities. PopSci:

Some commercial partners already have deals with the space agency to use its facilities. Boeing is refurbishing one of the Orbiter Processing Facilities for its CST-100 space transport capsule, which could eventually ferry up to seven astronauts to the space station. And SpaceX has already used the launch facilities at KSC.

“But there’s plenty left,” says PopSci. So start saving those pennies.

More from Smithsonian.com:

What Is It Like to View a Space Shuttle Launch?
This One Beautiful Video Sums Up All of Space Shuttle History

Colin Schultz | | READ MORE

Colin Schultz is a freelance science writer and editor based in Toronto, Canada. He blogs for Smart News and contributes to the American Geophysical Union. He has a B.Sc. in physical science and philosophy, and a M.A. in journalism.