Seattle's museum of flight broke ground yesterday on a new space gallery, made in large part with the intention of acquiring one of the three space shuttles soon to retire. The 12 million dollar, 15,500 square foot building, partly funded via the state, will be placed across the street from the museum and could be housing a shuttle (should they receive one) as early as this time next year. The museum believes it provides strong and stiff competition to the rest of the applicants, given their extensive educational programs nevermind a runway long enough for the modified NASA 747 to land at.
More information at the Seattle PI article: http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/arc ... p#extended