Space Shuttle Tires
Appears NASA is ready to loan out used tires from the Space Shuttle’s landing gear:
NASA is seeking outside organizations interested in a unique outreach opportunity using main landing gear tires from space shuttle missions. The long-term loan of these tires may be used to educate, inspire or inform the public about NASA’s scientific and technological achievements through art, sculpture, furniture, building structures, exhibits or other innovative uses of the artifacts. These items may not be used for the promotion of any organization or entity, or for commercial purposes.
Given the limited number of these tires and the estimated response, NASA is requesting that interested organizations submit proposals for their use, allowing the agency to choose those that best meet NASA’s education and outreach objectives.
We currently have in inventory approximately 30 flown space shuttle main landing gear tires for this opportunity. In addition, we have a number of non-flown space shuttle tires (submitters should state their preference in proposal). Data on specific flights for each tire are available in Attachment I. Tires flown on specific missions or on a certain orbiter may be requested, although NASA cannot guarantee that all requests will be fulfilled.
Hey, you never know where they’ll end up. Maybe on the program "American Chopper" — you may recall the Teutels visited Johnson Space Center in 2005 when they were preparing to build the "Shuttle Bike" (delivered that August). Buy it on Amazon: it ran in season 5, episodes 5 and 6. Watch video clips here.
