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The 123 foot or 37 meter long space shuttle was previously in NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida for 18 years until it was moved to Houston in October for public viewing. Soon it will be placed on top of the original Shuttle Carrier Aircraft in 2015. The space agency spent $12 million for the new tourist attraction.
"Unfortunately, someone vandalized our high-fidelity mock shuttle. They wrote some offensive words and political statements," shared Melanie Johnson, NASA Space Center Houston's Director of Education to Space.com.
The derogatory statements such as, "Houston, we are the problem," were concentrated on the other side of the replica which cannot be viewed by many tourists. One of the first to notice the vandals doing their spray painting early that morning was a bus driver who was quick to report them to the authorities.
According to Johnson, "We immediately reacted and responded to it by covering up the derogatory terms, and then the secondary words as well. Now the shuttle's back, it's been painted over."
The Harris Country Constable's Office was immediately advised of the situation. The Space Center Houston officials also informed the police to file an official report.
"To the person who did this — you really need to check yourself, because you're making it bad for all other decent people in this town," said the driver who reported the incident.
"We're going to rise above this and keep moving forward. We are going to have the opportunity to teach hundreds of thousands of more people about the space shuttle," Johnson said firmly.
And by two in the afternoon (2000 GMT) the same day, the mock space shuttle is as good as new. Not a trace of the vandalism could be made out from the model and tourists were already having their pictures taken in front of it.
