With the 30^th anniversary of the Columbia mission fast approaching, approximately 21 museums and science and visitor centers are attempting to snag one of the three space shuttles to be retired by NASA.

But the opportunity to display one of the three ships will come at a heavy price tag. NASA revealed that the shuttles are worth $28.8 million. Early last year, NASA decreased the amount of $42 million. The $28.8 million cost was based on NASA’s projection for transporting a shuttle from Kennedy Space Center to a major US airport on the top of a modified jumbo jet and for exhibiting it inside a climate-controlled building.

As of the moment, only Shuttle Discovery has a definite destination and that is the Smithsonian Institution. NASA’s oldest and most traveled shuttle will be heading to the hangar of the National Air and Space Museum in Virginia. It will replace the Enterprise, the shuttle replica used for testing in the latter part of the 1970s.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr., himself a former shuttle commander, will announce the winning destinations on Tuesday in time for the celebration of Columbia’s maiden voyage. However, the celebration could be postponed should the Federal government shut down.

NASA originally had four space shuttles. Challenger was destroyed during its launch in 1986 and was replaced by the Endeavour. Seven years later, Columbia was destroyed. Columbia kicked off the shuttle program on April 12, 1981,  two decades after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to walk in space.

Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to make its final launch this month with Atlantis terminating the program this summer. President Barack Obama wants NASA to focus on sending missions to an asteroid and Mars and let private companies ferry crew to the International Space Station.

Houston, home of NASA’s astronaut corps and Mission Control, is one of the aspirants aiming to get one of the three shuttles. They are preparing the Space Center Houston tourist center for one of the shuttles. Spouses of astronauts wrote a letter to Bolden suggesting that some parts of the shuttle be shared among the other bidders.

With Endeavour taking its place at the Smithsonian Institution, Kim Jones, curator of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and Planetarium in Oklahoma is hoping that it would nab the Enterprise.

The other leading contenders are the US Air Force National Museum in Dayton, Ohio; the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City; Museum of Flight in Seattle; and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

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