NASA's space shuttle project is over and the space research giant is ready to unload some of its property at The Kennedy Space Center.
After the retirement of the shuttle project, around 8,000 lay-offs were finalized. This led to acres of amenities lying useless driving NASA to rent, lease or put up the assets for sale.
The Kennedy Space Center Campus is located in Cape Canaveral and NASA does not need the lot any more. The maintenance of the plot and other assets is costing NASA a fortune, which is one of the main reasons for putting it up for sale or lease, reports The Verge.
NASA hopes that the buyer would utilize the place for research or other space-related programs. However, the association has extended the offer to the private sector as well. The Kennedy space Center has been up for auction for a while and NASA expects to see some positive proceedings in the coming six months,The Verge reports.
The lots that are up for sale are; The Orbiter Processing units, Launchpad 39A - where the shuttle was launched, The vehicle assembly building, the launch control center, shuttle maintenance garages, the structure used to compile Saturn V-Apollo rockets, the Hangar N unit and its equipment plus many other pieces of emergent properties, reports LA Times.
"We have a lot of things in discussion, realizing that these major facilities have been funded by the space shuttle program and the facilities out here can't be in an abandoned state for long before they become unusable," Joyce Riquelme, director of planning and development at the Kennedy Space Center told The Los Angeles Times. "So we're in a big push over the next few months to either have agreements for these facilities or not."
The bidding process is being kept a hush-hush matter, commercial business possibilities are also being looked at, reports the LA Times.
NASA has already signed deals with Boeing and Space Florida, which is using one of the shuttle garages to assemble its CST-100 capsules. The capsule can accommodate seven astronauts at a time.
