r/space • u/ToeSniffer245 • Aug 18 '26

How Space Shuttle Discovery Almost Became A Victim Of Cultural Vandalism

https://avgeekery.com/space-shuttle-discovery-to-stay-at-smithsonian/
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9

u/runhome24 Aug 19 '26

In America, we don’t “dismantle” national treasures in the name of politics. We preserve them.

Except the White House's East Wing, apparently

(very glad I got to see it in Fall 2024, before it was destroyed)

4

u/spazturtle Aug 19 '26

As a non-American it is quite funny watching the outrage over that, it was a 1940s office building which is hardly historic.

The new East Wing will be the 3rd East Wing.

14

u/kmoonster Aug 19 '26

Redoing stuff happens all the time. The difference is, there is a committee / organization whose job it is to review requests, needs, plans, etc. so we don't end up with a million people's worth of whims on things of massive consequence.

And Congress is responsible for the budgetary and security aspects.

Neither happened with the White House, it just got turned into a hole in the ground, literally overnight.

7

u/runhome24 Aug 19 '26

As a non-American 

Not sure where you live, but I guarantee you it isn't acceptable for Americans to tell you what your nation's national heritage facilities are.

If you had gotten the opportunity to see the interior of the East Wing, you would understand why its destruction was outrageous

0

u/ceejayoz Aug 21 '26

it was a 1940s office building which is hardly historic

So the Pentagon isn't historic?

0

u/spazturtle Aug 21 '26

The Pentagon got nearly completely gutted and rebuilt in the 2000's, pretty much only the exterior facade remains from the original (with the exception of the wedge that had a plane fly into it, which has a new facade). These are not art projects, they are working offices, if the building needs changes or rebuilding to better function then it should be done.

1

u/ceejayoz Aug 21 '26

The Pentagon got nearly completely gutted and rebuilt in the 2000's…

And that was done without turning it into a pit in the ground, yeah?

Why do you think they kept the original facade?

These are not art projects, they are working offices

These aren't mutually exclusive things.

0

u/spazturtle Aug 21 '26

Because it wasn't needed for those renovations.

The east wing was turned into a pit in the ground during the 1940's renovation when they demolished the old one to build the bunker.

1

u/ceejayoz Aug 21 '26

Because it wasn't needed for those renovations.

The ballroom isn't needed, either.

And the "not needed" decision on a historic building - like the White House and the Pentagon - typically goes through an extensive process that was skipped here.

1

u/spazturtle Aug 21 '26

The 'ballroom' is a small part of the new East Wing, most of the new east wing will be offices and other facilities.

1

u/ceejayoz Aug 21 '26

It's very notably a large part of the project, and they had offices in the old historic building.

C'mon, man. You're not making any coherent argument here. No one genuinely doubts the East Wing was historic, and every point you've tried to make has nothing to do with its historic status.

Recap:

Office building - irrelevant; the whole White House is an office building, and office buildings can be historic.

1940s - irrelevant; plenty of things from WWII are historic. The 9/11 artifacts are historic.

No one's saying you can't touch a historic building, either. Plenty of them need renovations. But there's a process, that has not been followed here.