You know Houston is known as "Space City" and as home of not only Space Center Houston, but also the Johnson Space Center, where scientists guided the Space Shuttles to and from The Final Fontier.
But some bureaucrats seem to think the Space Shuttle Discovery would be more at home in the Washington DC area, so they're pushing for the spacecraft to eventually go on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
There's been a tug-of-war going on, with the latest tug being a letter from the Smithsonian saying the shuttle might have to be dismantled in order to move it to Houston, which could end up considerably lowering the historical value of the craft.
That argument is not impressive to those of us who remember seeing the shuttles hauled by trucks from landings in California and elsewhere back to Cape Canaveral in the '80s.
It's also apparently not impressing Texas-based US Senator Ted Cruz, who said in a different letter that "President Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' authorizes the transfer of a NASA-designated space vehicle to a facility involved in the Commercial Crew Program and to a local entity within the same metropolitan area for public display."
In other words, Houston, Texas.
In a joint letter with Texas other US Senator, John Cornyn, Sen Cruz wrote, "this [particular] relocation honors both the intent of Congress and the legacy of America's space program."
The Smithsonian letter aimed at keeping the shuttle in its current location in Virginia, said “Both NASA and the Smithsonian believe that Discovery will have to undergo significant disassembly to be moved...and we remain concerned that disassembling the vehicle will destroy its historical value."
The argument by the Smithsonian and a group called Keep the Shuttle is that taking the shuttle apart in order to move it to Texas could damage the shuttle and in the end would only qualify it to be considered a "replica" of the original spacecraft -- and a replica is already on display at Space Center Houston, which is vying to be Discovery's new home.
But Senators Cruz and Cornyn put it bluntly: they're on the side of Houston as the new home.
"It's time for the Space Shuttle Discovery to return to the community that helped make its missions possible."