Students design temporary home for NASA's space shuttle orbiter

As part of its bid to offer a retirement home for the space shuttles Discovery or Atlantis, the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History had Texas A&M students develop design concepts for a building to temporarily house the orbiter while a permanent structure was built.

Yet despite an all-out push by BVNM to lure one of the shuttles to the Brazos Valley, including a video appeal from President George H. W. Bush, on April 12, 2011, NASA announced the orbiters were headed to museums in Virginia and Florida.

Designs by Ingrid van Beljon, Dayna Finley and Maryam Rajabali were included as illustrations in an April 1, 2011 [KBTX-TV story] (http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Local_Museum_Wants_to_Bring_Space_Shuttle_to_Aggieland_119099589.html) about the museum’s campaign to land one of the space shuttles.

After designing the temporary buildings, later in the semester the students, led by Marcel Erminy, a senior lecturer in the Department of Architecture, designed permanent buildings for the shuttle.