Source: TimesOnline

For sale: second-hand spaceship, one previous owner, launchpad and crew not included.
Price: $36 million, plus $6 million for shipping and handling, or £27 million in all.

Nasa is seeking new homes for its three ageing space shuttle orbiters after they are decommissioned in 2010. With 278 million miles on the clock between them, however, interested parties may want to keep a spanner handy.

The cash-strapped space agency has written to museums, educational institutions and what it terms other appropriate organisations, inviting them to snap up a piece of history as it prepares to retire the shuttle fleet and make way for a new manned spaceflight programme: Constellation.

The asking price, which applies to each vehicle, covers the cost of making the orbiters safe for public display, including decontaminating toxic fuel systems, and transporting them to their final destination.
Amateur astronauts need not apply. In a document touting for business, Nasa makes clear that it will only allow the spacecraft to end up in a suitable place. The proposed fee is only an estimate and subject to change, Nasa said.

“It does not take into account special measures that may be required in specific situations, such as transporting the orbiter long distances over public roadways which may require removal of light posts and traffic signals, or transport by barge over water,” the document explains.

With two million moving parts and 150 miles of internal wiring, the space shuttle is the most complex machine ever created. Designed in the 1960s and pressed into operation in 1982, it is the first re-usable spacecraft capable of routinely launching into orbit like a rocket and then returning to Earth as a glider.

Only six shuttles have been built, though the first — Enterprise — was a test model and never flew in space. Challenger was lost in 1986 when it exploded 73 seconds after its launch from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and Columbia broke apart while returning from a mission in 2003. The disasters claimed the lives of 14 astronauts.

Three orbiters remain: Endeavour, Atlantis and Discovery. Between them, they have travelled 12,020 times around the Earth, taking astronauts on missions to the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope, lifting satellites into orbit, and costing US governments around $170 billion.

The fleet is due to fly eight more missions before being taken out of service in September 2010, clipping America’s wings until 2015 when Constellation is due to go live, with the intention of taking man back to the Moon by 2020 and thereafter to Mars.

But Constellation’s hefty price tag and unease over alleged design flaws have attracted the scrutiny of Barack Obama, the President-elect, who it is thought may order the programme to be scaled down and the shuttle’s lifespan extended. Such a prospect is said to have caused friction in recent weeks between the head of Nasa, Michael Griffin, and officials working for Mr Obama.

One shuttle is already earmarked to spend its retirement at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum in Washington, home to some of America’s most treasured aeronautical artefacts, including the 1903 Wright Flyer, the world’s first powered aircraft.

Anyone eyeing the other two may be advised to measure up for parking space first; a shuttle standing horizontally measures 122ft (37m) in length, with a wingpsan of 78ft.

Backyard blast-offs will be out of the question. Engines, rocket boosters and fuel tank are not included.

— A decade after the killing of the fashion designer Gianni Versace, the owners of his Miami villa are opening it up to visitors, charging $10,000 (£6,700) to stay overnight in the fashionista’s suite (Anne Barrowclough writes). The villa has Michelangelo-style ceilings, a lion-skin rug, and gilt everywhere. The tour of Casa Casuarina — at $65 — includes the courtyard, dining room and a marble lavatory with a golden seat.