<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=44Umn7_0n3wfrYg00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=44Umn7_0n3wfrYg00" width="1280" height="960" ></figure>It appears the NASA rocket located at the north Alabama welcome center on Interstate 65 will be dismantled and removed despite efforts to save it.The Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission, the governing body of the U.S. Space &amp; Rocket Center in Huntsville, voted earlier this month to continue its path to take down the Saturn 1B rocket that NASA says has deteriorated beyond the point of restoration.NASA, which owns the rocket and has loaned it to the Space &amp; Rocket Center, has charged the rocket center with taking down the Apollo-era, 168-foot-tall rocket that has stood at the welcome center just south of the Tennessee state line for more than 40 years.Wes Kelley, chair of the ASSEC, said Wednesday the vote by the commission’s business and executive committees charts a final course for the rocket’s demise. The <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/rocket-at-alabama-welcome-center-wins-small-victory-for-survival.html">full commission voted in May</a> to refer the matter back to the subcommittees to ensure that the rocket center “makes every reasonable effort” to make sure the rocket could not be salvaged.However, a group seeking to save the rocket has not surrendered. Steven Thornton, CEO of Monte Sano Research in Huntsville and a leader of that group, said support from Gov. Kay Ivey will be pursued and noted that the Alabama attorney general’s office has not signed off on dismantling the rocket. Under the state’s 2017 monument preservation law, <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/01/does-alabama-law-protecting-monuments-apply-to-rest-stop-rocket.html">the rocket may be protected from removal</a> because it has been in place for more than 40 years.Thornton also pointed to a new state law passed earlier this month as an asset. <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/alabama-welcome-center-rocket-could-be-repaired-under-bill-exempting-it-from-memorial-preservation-act.html">The bill, sponsored by Sen. Tom Butler, R-Madison</a>, and signed into law by Ivey, provides for a replica rocket at the welcome center “if the original rocket … is beyond restoration or repair.”The subcommittee review, Kelley said, determined that dismantling the rocket was the best option. The committees have been studying the issue of the rocket for years, Kelley said. Thornton, however, said he expected an objection to the subcommittee’s review at ASSEC’s next full meeting in August.“(Rocket Center CEO Kimberly Robinson) provided detailed information on the rocket’s structural design and the current condition,” Kelley said. “Both of those, the structural design and the current condition, present complications for further inspection and repair. So given the constraints of unpredictable costs, contracting requirements, time and safety, the committees agreed that reasonable efforts have been made to save the rocket.”While <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/02/nasa-updates-plans-for-rocket-at-alabama-rest-stop.html">NASA has affixed restoration cost estimates at more than $7 million</a>, Kelley said the cost could possibly be more than that because of the uncertainty of the damage done through decades of being exposed to the environment.“As I try to boil it down, it’s the unpredictable costs,” Kelley said. “The way the rocket is put together makes it very difficult to get to the structural pieces that need work without essentially completely deconstructing the rocket and putting it all back together again. And that means you can’t get a good estimate on what needs to be done until you take it apart.”The cost uncertainty is also factored alongside the rocket center’s other artifacts and obligations, Kelley said.“As far as the rocket center is concerned, when we look at the priorities that we have, which are significant with the other rockets and artifacts and infrastructure that were charged with, that amount of uncertainty is difficult to just jump off and go for it.”Thornton has a different perspective on the cost uncertainty.Referring to Butler’s bill that’s now law, Thornton said, “I do believe we have law … that asks the question, Is the condition of that rocket beyond stabilization? And that has not been answered.”The legality of removing the rocket, though, remains “in limbo,” Kelley said. The rocket center has not received a requested opinion from the Alabama attorney general’s office asking if the rocket is protected under the 2017 monuments law, Kelley said. The penalty for violating the monuments law is a $25,000 fine.Kelley said the time for final resolution has passed, given that the welcome center has already been closed for months for renovation and that dismantling the rocket needs to occur during that closure.“The preferred timeline was always to do it when the welcome center went under renovation,” he said. “That happened a little bit faster than we expected it to happen. But that was always what I viewed as an ideal timetable, to do it while the welcome center was under construction.”The Saturn 1B is one of only two remaining in the world, according to the rocket center. A rocket center report from 2022 described the rocket as an “overlooked workhorse of the Apollo program.” Among its tasks was launching Skylab into space.</div></body>

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Rocket at Alabama welcome center appears doomed after vote

It appears the NASA rocket located at the north Alabama welcome center on Interstate 65 will be dismantled and removed despite efforts to save it. The Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission, the governing body of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, voted earlier this month to continue its path to take down the Saturn 1B rocket that NASA says has deteriorated beyond the point of restoration.