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NASA Transportation

For Sale: a 1990 Airstream Trailer/NASA Command Vehicle for Space Shuttle Landings (hemmings.com) 30

Posted by EditorDavid from the dual-purpose-vehicles dept.
The vehicle "once led the Space Shuttle down the runway at Edwards Air Force Base," The Drive reported in 2022, noting it was won in an auction for $21,061 (beating 18 other bidders). "I just figured the NASA brand combined with Airsteam hip seemed like a can't lose combination," the buyer says now, in a listing for the vehicle on the on the automotive sales site Hemmings.com asking $199,000..

They're touting it as a priceless marketing/publicity prop — "a once in a lifetime opportunity" to own what was once an "onsite command center complete with communications and atmospheric monitoring... Imagine pulling into Burning Man driving this..." The seller points out it's the only custom-built "Airstream" trailer ever sold by NASA. (The others were crushed, except for one donated to the Kennedy museum.) But for this one "Apparently there was some miscommunication when the vehicle was decommissioned. It should have been offered to museums but the sales team did not know what it was.")

"Has only 8240 miles on it as driven from Ohio to California then around the Edwards base."

The seller apparently first tried listing it on eBay in May for $50,000. ("Reserve not met," says that listing page now. "Very well maintained, minor dings on exterior...")

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

For Sale: a 1990 Airstream Trailer/NASA Command Vehicle for Space Shuttle Landings More | Reply

For Sale: a 1990 Airstream Trailer/NASA Command Vehicle for Space Shuttle Landings

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  • $200K is an insane amount for a project vehicle (Score:4, Interesting)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Saturday August 02, 2025 @10:51AM (#65562398)
    The seller purchased the vehicle for $21K and wants to resell it for 10X. Looking at the pictures, nothing much says NASA than the outside. The inside is stripped of any NASA equipment and most other equipment. Realistically this trailer cannot be used a home as it does not have things like a kitchen or a bedroom. It will require a major renovation to turn it into a "command center" or even a home.
    • I wouldn't have paid $10K for that. As you stated, it's not useful as an RV as it stands.

    • Re:$200K is an insane amount for a project vehicle (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ZombieCatInABox ( 5665338 ) on Saturday August 02, 2025 @11:06AM (#65562418)

      Collectors/investors.

      He will sell it, and at the price he asks, if not more.

      • And what would collectors do with it? The only thing they can do is display it for the outside; they cannot really use it without major work is the problem. As for collecting it, if it had the original command equipment, that might be something collectors would want. It does not. If someone wanted to paint their airstream to look like this trailer, they could do it for less than $200K.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        I'm sure there is someone stupid though. but most of the collectors I've seen are pretty discriminating in their purchase of NASA history. There's one collector that has at least one (now) working Apollo guidance computer. Some very brilliant Google engineers didn't several years reverse engineering it, repairing it and ultimately flying it in simulation. They've now backed up and archived several of the versions of the software that flew on Apollo. That's the kind of history worth preserving. Too bad it h

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Collectors collect. There are very few of these things - sure, it's not say the Airstream trailer that Apollo astronauts used, but NASA stuff generally doesn't come up very often.

          And it's not that we have to rely on rich private collectors - it's that rich private collectors own the stuff like the the Apollo AGC. And regular mere mortals will never have a chance at getting one. It's just that ONE rich collector happened to let a bunch of geeks at it - but it was also for a quid pro quo - they got it working

          • Collectors collect. There are very few of these things - sure, it's not say the Airstream trailer that Apollo astronauts used, but NASA stuff generally doesn't come up very often.

            How it was used is also important. People can buy Deloreans when they come up at auction for the price of a new car. The Delorean used in the Back to the Future movies is the only ones worth a lot of money.

            And back to the Airstream trailer - sure the market is small, and it was only really used to ferry astronauts to and from the launchpad (because the suits are bulky and the air conditioners take up a lot of room).

            It was not. If you read the summary, it was a mobile command center and not used to ferry astronauts. It also only appears in pictures escorting the shuttle on the ground. That would have been after the shuttle landed (as the title says). The chance it was used to ferry astronauts is very, very small.

            But it's probably one of the few artifacts of the space shuttle program left in private hands, and interest will be among transportation historians (who are broke), museums, and private collectors of transportation stuff. If the private collector is generous, they may engage in a restoration project with the historians who can document the entire thing for the public but in return, get an asset with a greatly increased value since it's likely more original.

            And

      • Maybe, maybe not. Collectors paying that kind of money have "people" to watch for auctions like the one this guy won. If those collectors really wanted it, they would have won the auction.
        • It probably would have gotten some interest if it still had NASA equipment inside. By now that equipment would be obsolete so few secrets to protect. Or if the functional components had been stripped but the controls on the command center area kept intact.
      • Imagine a person with more money than he knows what to do with who loves space and has a little space museum. Even he has better things to buy for 200k than this thing. Or 300k if he wanted to restore it. Or 600k if he wanted to rebuild the original radios, computers and programming.
        linky [time.com]
        linky [space.com]
        linky [thespacestore.com]
        linky [orbitalartifacts.com]

  • Obligatory... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'd buy that for a dollar.

  • I feel like they need to at least put forth the effort to restore its original blue/silver. White is pretty awful. Removing the white paint on an aluminum hull probably won't be easy, but any collector willing to shell out for it is probably going to be more interested if the thing at least superficially looks right.

    • Least effort doesn't make sense if you want to restore it. Least effort would be to use it as is. The problem with any of these Airstream, Streamline, Elko et al airspace-grade aluminum trailers is that you have to drill out hundreds to thousands of rivets and then replace them again for any significant repair. Doing it correctly takes a truly painfully long amount of time. Also, while these might have been sealed with something more serious than butyl like most of these were, whatever it was has almost sur

  • yikes (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Saturday August 02, 2025 @11:52AM (#65562490)

    It is an interesting vehicle but its in very poor shape. Quite a project to make it useful. With a 454 that huge thing must really be in Gallons per Mile territory.

  • Novelty (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RossCWilliams ( 5513152 ) on Saturday August 02, 2025 @12:03PM (#65562510)

    Its certainly a novelty and someone could park it out along the highway to get people to stop.

    This is a more modern example, Hemming.com should get some hits from this clickbait. Not sure its worth $10,000 much less the price asked. But would this be a story if the guy was asking $10,000? No. What's even more modern is that since he couldn't sell it at a lower price, he raised the price to make it appear more valuable.

  • The buyer is clearly a little confused if he thinks "pullling into Burning Man" with a 50 year old obsolete RV that says "NASA" on the side is going to make him the new folk hero of Mud&Shit City. Good luck to him in unloading it for 10x what he paid for it, but if "being the star at Burning Man" is on the agenda, time to do less shrooms, d00d.

  • That's not a trailer, you moronic fuck stains. Fix the title.

  • Seattle will buy it (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday August 02, 2025 @03:13PM (#65562766)

    And donate it to some homeless fent dealer. Who will park it two blocks from a high school.

  • From the ebay auction

    Just park it down at Cape Kennedy or in Vegas and you will be making a constant and continuous 150,000-200k++ a year. This vehicle will outproduce any rental property you can buy for a million dollars. It's an investment. Not only that it's a smart investment because no one's ever going to be able to compete with you. Or use it to promote you company products, or rent it for events for $10k a pop. There are tons of possibilities

    Yea, right... You claim someone can easily make $150k+/year renting this out but couldn't even find a starting bidder at $50k.

    Real "used car salesman" vibes here...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      If it's got that kind of earning potential, what went wrong for the owner? Obviously he's lying or he'd be making a lot of money himself right now. He's just out to scam someone.

  • The sister crew vehicle (a 28ft with one rear axle) is sitting at Kennedy museum.
    You are not buying an RV. This is a marketing, publicity, business. If you can't understand that then move on.

    Currently in running condition and stored in California. We spent $45,000 developing as built plans and modification strategies because Airstream does not have any of the final blueprints and the blueprints that came with the vehicle including approximately 3,000 pages of documentation do not line up with the actual vehicle that they produced and modified over the years.
    Unmatched Revenue Potential
    Rental revenue projections:
    Annual net: $150,000+, outperforming most million-dollar rental properties.
    Event attraction potential:

    Curious about that additional $45,000 spent on "developing as built plans and modification strategies". Is it a collectible or museum candidate in its current state or not? Sinking that much additional money certainly requires asking for a much higher price just to break even.

    • Can't help but wonder why that guy doesn't keep that "unmatched revenue potential" for himself.

      I mean, at $150K/year, he would only have to run the business for 8 months for gross revenue to reach his asking price.

  • I'm not an RV expert but to me that looks like a class A motorhome.

    • A really, really old one.

      One that probably needs $100K-$200K in renovations to be viable.

      That puts the cost at $300-$400K. Go see what else you can get for that kind of cash, and without having to wait a couple of years before you can use it.

  • You could give an Airstream a NASA paint job for a whole lot less money than that!

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