For Sale: Space Shuttle Discovery; High Mileage, Well Maintained

Perhaps NASA should take a page from the Conan O'Brien playbook and put its current offering up on Craigslist. The likelihood of actually selling a lightly used late night comedy show seems to be about the same as actually needing to purchase a not-so-lightly-used space shuttle, but as the Telegraph reports, NASA is for real. Prices have been slashed! Everything must go!

Well, perhaps not everything. But NASA is serious about unloading the space shuttle Discovery, and having put the spacecraft up for grabs at comparatively rock-bottom prices, they're hoping to grab the attention of someone of means who already has everything (save for an actual space shuttle, that is).

The asking price for Discovery is a bit over $28 million, strictly on a cash and carry basis, but a mere fraction of the original sticker price of $42 million. But wait! There's more! Act now, and NASA will sweeten the deal. Buy a shuttle, and NASA will toss in the engine for free. As the Telegraph reports, NASA's initial efforts to sell decommissioned shuttle engines landed with a dull thud, and they have resorted to offering them at no charge.

Discovery was first launched back in 1984, and has completed more than 5,000 orbits during 37 missions, including most recent trips to the International Space Station. Having served the US space program valiantly over the past three decades, the remaining fleet of three shuttles are headed for retirement this year, to be replaced by NASA new generation Ares 1-X rockets that are currently undergoing testing in advance of an anticipated 2015 maiden voyage.

Supplies are limited, so act fast. Operators are standing by.

Photo courtesy of NASA, via Wikimedia Commons