Mark Graham Plan of Excellence

Ok, so let me preface this by saying that I’m a proud Daytonian, and absolutely believe a shuttle should have come to Dayton – which by now Charles Bolton has informed the world that Dayton will, in fact, not receive a shuttle. While this is truly disappointing to me, and a lot of other people I know, I need to take a realistic look at this: Should Dayton have gotten a Space Shuttle?

For me, the answer is simple – it comes down to numbers. If I were NASA, I would want the shuttle to go where it is going to be viewed the most – that’s fair, and I can’t blame them for that. So, let’s break it down:

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex – draws over 1.5 million visitors per year.
The California Science Center – draws around 1.5 million visitors per year.
Air and Space Museum in New York City – gets over 915,000 visitors per year.
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian draws close to 9 million visitors per year.

So clearly the winner here is the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian should get best of breed – they blow everyone away!

Next on the list is clearly Kennedy Space Center – with over 1.5 million visitors per year, who can argue with that, right?

Then that leaves us with NY – they get over 915,000 visitors per year – that’s an impressive number. So clearly they should get the last shuttle right?

If you were wondering, the answer should be ‘NO’. The most conservative number that I could find about visitors visiting the National Museum of the United States Air Force was over 1,000,000 visitors per-year. Sorry, that blows away New York!!!!

What got me interested in doing this article was when Richard Kasier said “Sadly politics played a role in this decision.” I thought, really? Did they? Does Dayton get that many visits compared to NY, CA, and DC? – They don’t – except DC, clearly.

While I took the most conservative number in my report of Dayton’s National Museum of the United States Air Force – I took the most liberal number for each of the other museums (i.e., the higher of all of them). If I took Dayton’s highest number, like I did with all of the other Museums, I would have come up with a number around 1.5 million – way, way higher than NY’s highest visitor count of more than 915k/year.

Sadly, Chuck Schumer, and his cronies, played a HUGE role in this decision – and it was a poor decision for the American Public – Dayton would have done far more justice than NY. NY, one of the largest cities in the world – yet Dayton beats it regularly in museum visits.