WASHINGTON — Tucked inside President Donald Trump’s flagship tax and spending bill last month was a little-noticed provision to relocate the iconic Space Shuttle Discovery from a museum outside Washington to Houston.

The plan now faces legal uncertainty, with the Smithsonian Institution arguing Congress had no authority to give away what it considers private property—even before accounting for the steep logistical and financial challenges.

“The Smithsonian Institution owns the Discovery and holds it in trust for the American public,” the museum network, which receives substantial federal funding yet remains an independent entity, said in a statement to AFP yesterday.

“In 2012, Nasatransferred ‘all rights, title, interest and ownership’ of the shuttle to the Smithsonian,” the statement continued, calling Discovery one of the museum’s “centerpieces” that welcomes millions of visitors a year.

The push to move Discovery from the Air and Space Museum’s site in northern Virginia began in April, when Texas Senator John Cornyn, a Republican who faces a tough primary challenge next year by state attorney general Ken Paxton, introduced the “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act,” naming Discovery.

Its passage allocated US$85 million (RM363.6 million) for the move, though the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has projected a far higher cost of US$325 million, adding that the Nasa administrator’s power over non-Nasa entities is “unclear.”